NC!ENT 
RINER 

ABEL AND 



UBLA 



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US 




Rnnic /y / 



GopyrightN 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



EDITED BY 



GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. 

PKOrESSOR OP RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 
CHRISTABEL, AND KUBLA KHAJST 



lonsmans* ^ngltg!) Claggttg 



COLERIDGE'S 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT 
MARINER 

CHRISTABEL AND KUBLA KHAN 



EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTIONS 
BY 

HERBERT BATES, A.B. 

BROOKLYN MANUAL HIGH SCHOOL, N. Y. 




LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE AND 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
323 EAST 23rd STREET, CHICAGO 






Copyright, 1895 

BY 

long:mans, green, and go. 



Copyright, 1914 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



First Edition, Jakuarv, 1896 

Reprinted, August, 1896 

Nov., 1897, Feb., July, Sept., 1898 

Feb., 1901, Jan., 1902 

Oct., 1903, August. 1905, and Feb., 1908 

May, 1909, Jan., 1914 
New Edition (with additions), August, 1914 



SEP J4I9I4 



J(.A379500 



PREFACE 

I HAYE treated these poems as introductory to poetry, 
aiming to help boys and girls to see the beauties of song- 
land. True, some seem elect, without aid ; others seem 
by nature debarred. There is, however, a great mean — 
the host of young people who may be taught to enjoy 
poetry. Editor and teacher must help them, not mere- 
ly by admiring, but by explaining admiration. Poetry 
reaches us, not by miracle, but by means most definite. 
The printed lines convey certain sounds pleasing in 
themselves. Yet to the untrained ear even this beauty 
must be demonstrated. Just so with the ideas, to us so 
suggestive. The student must be helped to grasp the 
idea, to master the material for emotion. His imagina- 
tion must do the rest. 

I have tried to avoid both extremes — cold analysis and 
vague appreciation. Appreciation can hardly be intel- 
ligibly conveyed. Analysis, carried too far, becomes 
mechanical, deadening,- leading even to snobbish patron- 
age qf art so easily measured. It seems better, aiming 
at the mean, to explain the reason of our pleasure, and 
so lead others, first to see, then to feel, as we do. 

Such guidance is the object of this book. Alone it 
cannot accomplish this. The teacher is needed, the 
teacher who, feeling what poetry is, shall yet be will- 
ing patiently to slacken liis pace, to explain, to encourage 
— perhaps along dull paths — other feet to the pleasant 
eminences of poetry. 

H. B. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 

Introduction ix 

Chronological Table xxxviii 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 1 

Christabel 

Introduction 49 

Christabel 55 

KuBLA Khan 

Introduction 83 

Kubla Khan 86 



INTRODUCTION 



I. The Author 

''I have known/' sa3's Wordsworth, ''many men who 
have done wonderful things, but the only wonderful man 
I ever saw was Coleridge/' Yet a recent critic speaks of 
this same man as a '' poetical Skimpole/' who died '' after 
four decades of inglorious dependence upon rich men's 
bounties." And, strange as it may seem, both are, in 
some measure, right. 

As a boy, Coleridge was nnboylike, moping alone over 
Btory-books, or cutting down — a knight of his own imag- 
ined romances — ranks of unoffending thistles with his 
mimic sword. In part, this was due to his dreamy, im- 
aginative nature ; in part, to his delicate health, which 
kept him from ruder sports. But it was only for the first 
nine years of his life (] 772-1781) that he was to enjoy 
the quiet of his country home. The death of his father, 
the pedantic, lovable, unworldly rector of Ottery St. 
Mary's, left him an orphan, and he was taken away 
from his peaceful Devon to the great charity-school, 
Christ's Hospital, in the busy heart of London. 

Here, according to Charles Lamb, the life of a boy 
without friends — and Coleridge had none near — was far 
from happy. There was little food, often bad food, and 
sometimes savage injustice in the guise of discipline. Yet 
the strict government may have been good for Coleridge's 
wayward temperament ; and literature, however unkindly 
the guides, was an open land. Once, it is true, disheart- 



X INTRODUCTION 

ened, he sought escape in apprenticeship to a shoemaker, 
but was forced back into the reluctant pursuit of learn- 
ing. Yet, even under schoolmaster Bowyer's frown, his 
dream-life went on. One incident is amusing. He was 
walking the crowded Strand, — swimming, in mind and 
arms, an imaginary sea. His outstretched hand brushed 
a stranger's pocket. He was promptly grasped. *' What„ 
so young and so wicked ! " " But I'm not a pickpocket, 
sir ; I thought I was Leander swimming the Hellespont.'' 
And the stranger, admiring, obtained for him entrance to 
a circulating library. Years later, De Quincey speaks of 
the mature Coleridge's " difficulty in regaining his posi- 
tion among daylight realities." The man was no less a 
dreamer than the boy. 

Dreamer or no, Coleridge rose to be Captain, or head 
boy. On leaving, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge. 
Here he remained two years. But he took no degree. 
Debts ; failure to win a scholarship ; radical views in 
religion, which displeased the authorities ; and, De 
Quincey says, ^^a heavy disappointment in love,'' drove 
him friendless into the London streets. In discourage- 
ment, he joined a regiment of dragoons, under the 
name of ^' Comberback," appropriate to his horseman- 
ship. But a pencilled lament in Latin betrayed him ; 
and his friends extricated him and sent him back to 
Cambridge. 

A few months, however, found him once more adrift, 
this time with a new friend, Robert Southey, a poet of 
smaller genius but of bulkier accomplishment, another 
young dreamer of freedom, strayed from the University 
fold. These two, with a few kindred spirits, planned the 
Pantisocracy, an ideal community, a little like the later 
*' Brook Farm," to be founded in some terrestrial paradise 
beside the Susquehanna, where there would be but two 
hours of work each day, and poetry, philosophy, and 



INTRODUCTION 



XI 



golden dreams illimitable. But golden dreams require, 
alas, a golden foundation. The poet-emigrants got no far- 
ther than Bristol, Southey's home. There their plans 
stopped, temporarily from lack of funds, ultimately from 
the intrusion of other interests. The two poets fell in 
love with two sisters. Southey married Edith Fricker, 
Coleridge married Sara, and the prospects of the Panti- 
socracy languished. 

Coleridge was never practical. Of all the steps of his 
life, however, including the enlisting, his marriage was 
the maddest. His total income, except for a condi- 
tional offer of a few pounds from a publisher, was aj)prox- 
imately nothing. But he had "^ no solicitude on the 
subject.^' He hoped, indeed, to raise enough produce on 
his little patch of ground to support himself and his 
*^ pensive Sara/'' Of course his unsubstantial plans failed 
to produce substantial results. He tried one device after 
anothe/- — lectured, established a newspaper, published his 
'^Juvenile Poems,^^ wrote for the Morning Clironicle, 
took private pupils, and preached in local Unitarian 
churches — yet, had it not been for the kindly help of 
Southey and of the j^ublisher Cottle, he could hardly have 
contrived to pay the expenses of life. 

Kemember, however, that this inadequacy was not en- 
tirely his fault. His health was poor — it had been from 
the first. His best work had to be done spontaneously : 
the knowledge that he must do well seemed to embarrass 
him. Besides, his home life was unhappy. His wife did 
not understand him, nor could he sympathize with her. 
Severe attacks of facial neuralgia, too, were driving him 
to the use of laudanum, the drug that was, for the rest of 
his life, in the words of Foster, *^to shatter the most 
extraordinary faculties I have ever yet seen resident in a 
form of flesh and blood. ''^ 

Yet, little as he had accomplished, it is at this time 



xii INTRODUCTIOJS 

that Hazlitt writes of him, " You wished him to talk for- 
ever. His genius had angelic wings." All who met him 
felt that this young man was remarkable. 

Yet what, in 1796 — just one year before the writing of 
the '' Ancient Mariner " — had this remarkable young man 
actually accomplished ? His early poems are of no great 
merit. Mr. Swinburne doubts whether the '^Eeligious 
Mnsinos'' or the '^ Lines to a Young Ass ^^ '' be the more 
damnable/^ but notes '' Time, Real and Imaginary '' as 
the '•' sweetest amono; the verses of bovs who were to 2:row 
up great."' The promise, such as it is, is indefinite ; the 
bud hints little of the fruit. The verse is conventional, 
of but formal excellence. The poet had not yet awakened 
to his real self. Xor was South ey the man to awake him. 
The man who could rouse him, who did rouse him, Avas 
yet to come into his life.l 

This new influence was William Wordsworth, then poet 
merely in prospect, his verses penned but unprinted, 
pondering his theories, and preaching his doctrines to a 
little admiring circle. It was in 1797 that Coleridge met 
him. Their removal to Nether-Stowey brought the two 
poets together and led to one of the most famous and most 
fruitful of poetic intimacies, a friendship that affected 
the whole history of English literature. 

Let us see Coleridge with the eyes of Dorothy Words- 
worth. " At first,'" she writes, '' I thought him very 
plain, that is for about three minutes. He is pale, has a 
wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, 
loose-growing, half-curling, rough black hair. But if 
you hear him speak for five minutes, you think no more 
of these." Hazlitt, another of the group, says, " His 
forehead is broad and high, light, as if built of ivory, 
with large projecting eyebrows ; and his eyes rolled be- 
neath them like a sea with darkened lustre. He removed 
all doubts by beginning to talk. He did not cease while 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

he stayed, nor has he since, tlnit I know oi." De Quincey 
says of his eyes, " And it was from the peculiar appear- 
ance of haziness or dreaminess, which mixed with their 
light, tliat I recognized my object/'' 

He immediately captivated Wordsworth ; in fact the 
captivation was mutual. And mutual admiration is not 
a bad thing for genius of a disheartened turn. The two 
became at once inseparable, each bringing out the other's 
best, pacing the windy downs, with no companion but 
the admiring Dorothy. True, their choice of walks dif- 
fered. Coleridge liked ^^ uneven ground,"' loved to 
*' break through straggling branches of coj^sewood ; '' 
Wordsworth preferred ^'^ a straight gravel walk," with no 
'^collateral interruptions," — tastes, by the way, oddly 
suggestive of the differences of their poetry. The 
country was ideal, " with woods, smooth down, valleys 
with brooks running down through green meadows to 
the sea." ^' Whether," says Professor Shairp, ^' it was 
the freedom from the material ills of life, or the secluded 
beauty of the Quantock, or the converse with Words- 
worth, or all combined, there cannot be an}^ doubt that 
this was, as it has been called, his annus miraMUs, his 
poetic prime. It was the year of ^ Genevieve,' ' The 
Dark Ladie,' ' Kubla Khan,' the 'Ode to France,' the 
'Lines to Wordsworth,' the 'Ancient Mariner,' and the 
* First Part of Christabel,' not to mention many other 
poems of less mark. It was to Wordsworth the hopeful 
dawning of a new day which completely fulfilled itself ; 
to Coleridge, the brief blink of a poetic morning which 
had no noon." 

" Here," says Mrs. Oliphant, "the two poets came to 
the edge of their first joint publication, a book which, 
amid all its manifold imperfections, its presumptions and 
ifcssumptions, was yet to give the world assurance of two 
^hts of the greatest magnitude in its firmament." This 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

publication was tlie '* LArical Ballads/" At the time, 
little bat the imperfections received notice, though — in 
comparison with Wordsworth, the prime offender — Cole- 
ridge escaped with light criticism. Coleridge had con- 
tributed little, — the '^Einie of the Ancient Mariner," 
and a few other poems. The rest of the volume illus- 
trated Wordsworth^s theories of poetry, which, stated 
briefly, were that the simple emotions of daily life and the 
simple details of daily life are not out of place in j)oetiy. 
These simple emotions, Wordsworth further held, should 
be expressed in the simple language of daily life, in the 
language of peasants, not in any artificial ^'poetic dic- 
tion." There is obviously much truth in this. Words- 
worth, however, stated his case in the most aggressive 
way. In a few poems, too, he carried his practice too 
far, writing of *Mdiot boys" and '' household tubs," giv- 
ing, undeniably, good opportunity for ridicule. And the 
critics, taking advantage of this, ignored all the real 
beauty of the poems. Coleridge, it seems, understood 
Wordsworth's theory even better than did Wordsworth 
himself, and did much, afterwards, to explain what his 
friend really aimed at. But, be the theory as it might, 
the new manner was to prevail, and the publication of 
the ^'Ballads" marked, in the history of English poetry, 
a revolution heralded by Burns, Cowper, and Blake, but 
now first understandingly set afoot by these young cham- 
pions of simplicity. 

The '^Rime of the Ancient Mariner," save in its irreg- 
ular metre, its moral of love for the humblest of creatures^ 
and its very simple diction, bears little trace of this new 
manner of poetry. It seems, indeed, to have been re- 
garded as rather a flat failure, or, as Southey termed it, 
^'^ a very Dutch attempt at the sublime." Even Words- 
worth failed to find in it any great merit. It is interest- 
ing to read his note in a subsequent edition. He says 



INTRODUCTION XV 

that the reader owes to him the republication of the 
poem : — 

" The Author was himself very desirous that it should be sup- 
pressed. This has arisen from a consciousness of the defects of the 
Poem, and from a knowledge that many Persons had been much 
displeased with it. The Poem of my Friend has, indeed, many great 
defects ; first, that the principal person has no distinct character, 
either in his profession of Mariner, or as a human being who liaving 
been long under the control of supernatural impressions, might be 
supposed himself to partake of something supernatural ; secondly, 
that he does not act, but is constantly acted upon ; thirdly, that the 
events having no necessary connection, do not produce each other ; 
and lastly, that the imagery is somewhat too laboriously accumulated. 
Yet the Poem contains many delicate touches of passion, and indeed, 
the passion is everywhere true to Nature ; a great many of the stanzas 
present beautiful images, and are expressed with unusual felicity of 
language ; and the versification, tho' the metre is in itself unfit for 
long poems, is harmonious and artfully varied, exhibiting the utmost 
power of that metre, and every variety of which it is capable. It 
therefore appeared to me that these several merits (the first of which, 
namely, that of the passion, is of the highest kind) gave to the Poem 
a value which is not often possessed by better Poems. On this ac- 
count, I requested of my Friend to permit me to republish it." 

It was not, in fact, for years, that the ''^ Ancient Mariner '' 
took its present deserved position as one of the immortal 
poems of the language. Coleridge had written ahead of 
his time. He had to wait for appreciation. 

His life, after this, we may j^ass over rapidly. In many 
ways the story is cheerless. It was the philosopher who 
lived on. The poet, the best of him, seems to have passed 
away with the passing of that year at Q.uantock. 

For a year or so Coleridge travelled in Germany with 
the Wordsworths, studying a little, and translating Schil- 
ler's ^^ Death of Wallenstein.'' In 1799 he retired with 
Wordsworth into the Lake region of northern England — 
a region that gave to this group, Southey, Coleridge, and 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

Wordsworth, the name of the '' Lake School/' There 
Wordsworth remained. Not so Coleridge. Separated en- 
tirely from his family, who were supported by the less 
gifted but more dutiful Southey, he roamed at large. 
He made short flights to London, once even to Malta, 
returning always to the old shelter, to the old com- 
panions, who, however, shattered as he was in health and 
will, could no longer stimulate him to poetic effort. 

In 1814, determined to overcome the opium-habit, he 
placed himself under the care of Mr. Gilman of High- 
gate, near London. With this help, to some degree, he 
succeeded, but it was too late to recall the best of his 
powers. He still wrote brilliant fragments of verse, but 
his work as poet was virtually closed. His new work, 
different as it was, was no less wonderful. ^'A Doctor 
Johnson of the nineteenth century,^' he still talked mar- 
vellously to groups of admiring friends, to young poets, 
young critics, young philosophers, who came from far and 
near to hear him, most with reverence ; a few, like Oar- 
lyle, in the gruff contempt of youth. It was in these 
later years that he accomplished the bulk of his 23rose 
work — work that established his reputation as philosopher 
and as critic. And so he lived, till, at last, after fifteen 
years, the end came, the visit of '' gentle Sleep, with 
wings of healing. "" 

Coleridge had, he owned, a ^' smack of Hamlet '' in him. 
He realized, it was his burden to realize, his own inade- 
quacy. It was, in part, this that drove him into philo- 
sophic speculation. 

*' There was a time when, though my path was rough. 

This joy within me dallied with distress, 
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff 

Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness. 
For hope grew round me like the twining vine. 
And fruit and foliage not my own seemed mine. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

But now afflictions bow me to the earth, 

Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth, 
But oh ! each visitation 

Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth, 
My shaping power of imagination. 

For not to think of what I needs must feel, 
But to be still and patient, ail I can ; 

And haply by abstruse research to seal 

From my own nature all the natural man ; — 
This was my sole resource, my only plan : 

Till that which suits a part infects the whole, 

And now is almost grown the habit of my soul." 

He lacked self-help, — needed, as Mrs. Olipliant said, 
*'to weave himself in with some more steady, more deep- 
rooted being." As to liis philosophy, critics disagree. 
Some say that its golden haze hinted more than it really 
hid. Almost certainly the philosophy ultimately spoiled 
the poet. And yet his fame as philosopher dwindles year 
by year. It is as poet that he will live. " The highest 
lyric work," says Mr. Swinburne, " is either passionate or 
imaginative ; of passionate, Coleridge has nothing ; but 
for height and perfection of imaginative quality, he is 
the greatest of lyric poets. This was his special power, 
and this is his special praise." 

II. The Origi^t of the Poem. 

Of this Wordsworth gives the following account : 

**In the autumn of 1797, he (Coleridge), my sister, and myself, 
started from Alfoxden pretty late in the afternoon, with a view to 
visit Linton and the Valley of Stones near to it ; and as our united 
funds were small, we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writ- 
ing a poem to be sent to the New 31onthly Magazine. Accordingly 
we set oU, and proceeded along the Quantock hills, towards Watchet, 
and in the course of this walk was planned the poem of the ' Ancient 
Mariner,' founded on a dream,* as Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend 
♦A dream of " a skeleton ship with figures in it." 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was Mr. Cole- 
ridge's invention ; but certain parts 1 suggested ; for example, some 
crime was to be committed which should bring upon the 'Old Navi- 
gator,' as Coleridge afterward delighted to call him, the spectral 
persecution, as a consequence of the crime and of his own wander- 
ings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's ' Voyages ' a day or two before 
that while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently saw Albatrosses 
in that latitude, the largest sort of sea-fowl, some extending their 
wings twelve or thirteen feet. ' Suppose,' said I, ' you represent him 
as having killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and 
that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge 
the crime.' The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and 
adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by 
the dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to do 
witli the scheme of the poem. The gloss with which it was subse- 
quently accompanied was not thought of by either of us at the time, 
at least not a hint of it was given to me, and I have no doubt it was 
a gratuitous afterthought. We began the composition together, on 
that to me mem.orable evening. I furnished two or three lines at the 
beginning of the poem, in particular, 

' And listened like a three years' child : 
The Mariner had his will.' 

These trifling contributions, all but one, which Mr. C. has with 
unnecessary scrupulosity recorded, slipped out of his mind, as well 
they might. As we endeavored to proceed conjointly (I speak of 
the same evening) our respective manners proved so widely different 
that it would have been quite presumptuous for me to do anything 
but separate from an undertaking upon which I could only have 
been a clog. . . . We returned by Duburton to Alfoxden. The 
* Ancient Mariner,' grew and grew till it became loo important for 
our first object, which was limited to our expectation of five pounds; 
and we began to think of a volume, which was to consist, as Mr. 
Coleridge has told the world, of poems chiefly on supernatural sub- 
jects, taken from common life, but looked at, as much as might be, 
through an imaginative medium." — "Memoirs of William Words- 
worth," by Christopher Wordsworth. 

The passage from Shelvocke is as follows : 
*'They saw no fish, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black 
Albitross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as 



INTRODUCTION 



XIX 



if he had lost himself, till Hatley (my second captain), observing in 
one of his melancholy fits that this bird was always hovering near us, 
imagined from his color that it might be some ill-omen. That which, 
I supposed, induced him the more to encourage his superstition 
was the continued series of contrary tempestuous winds, which had 
oppressed us ever since we had got into this sea. But, be that as it 
would, he after some fruitless attempts at length shot the albitross, 
not doubting (perhaps) that we should have a fair wind after it."— 
Shelvocke, "Voyage round the World," 1736. 

Coleridge says, with regard to the origin of the poem : 

" The incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural, 
and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the 
affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally 
accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this 
sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever 
source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under super- 
natural agency. ... In this idea originated the plan of the 
* Lyrical Ballads,' in which it was agreed that my endeavors should l>e 
directed to persons and characters supernatural or at least romantic, 
yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a 
semblance of truth sufficient to secure for these shadows of imagina- 
tion that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which con- 
stitutes poetic faith." — "Biographia Literaria." 

These accounts are valuable as showing from how many 
sources the creative mind may absorb its material. But 
the poem, composed of all these stray elements, is no 
more a collection of them than a fire is a mere collection 
of the various twigs, straw, and papers that feed it. Every 
one of us, in every day, stores up a little saving of sights, 
sounds, and thoughts. A creative mind will, at some later 
day, transform all these into some new whole, sprung 
from, but unlike, any of its various sources. Imagina- 
tion is but a transubstantiation of fact, a transmuting of 
the commonplace. And genius is but a rare endownnafr 
of this transmutinof imaa^ination. 



XX 



IJSTRODUCTION 



TIL The Form of the Poem. 

The ''Ancient Mariner ^^ is a poem in substance and in 
form. Let us first examine this form. Eead aloud the 
first stanza. It does not, you see, sound like ordinary 
prose. What is the difference ? It is not in the rhyme, 
for, if you change '' one of three ^^ to " one of five," the 
sound will still be unlike that of prose. 

Read the stanza a second time, this time after a " sing- 
song " fashion. You will find that you pronounce some 
syllables heavily, — with emphasis, or stress ; while others 
you pass over lightly. Your reading will be much like 

this : 

It is an dnciewt manner, 

And he stop^Qlh one of three. 
By thy long gray heard and ^Zi^tering eye. 

Now tvherefove stoppst thou me? " 

See now, if, in these light and heavy syllables, you can. 
not find some system. Write out a '' sclieme " of the 
stanza, marking the heavy, emphasized sounds ^, and 
the light sounds, which you pass over quickly, w. You 
will find the result as follows : 



\j \u J- ^ ^ \j .^ 

\J X- ^^ .1- \J -L. 



No two heavy syllables come together, and there are 
never, between two heavy syllables, more than two light 
syllables, — usually there is only one. You might say, 
then, that the syllables usually come by turns, first one 
light, then one heavy, etc. , or, better still, that the line 
consists, for the most part, of groujJS of two syllables, and 

* The emphasis on the last syllable of mariner is slight, merely a secondary accent. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

that in each group the first is light, the second heavy. 
If there are three syllables, the first two are light. These 
groups are called feet. 

Examine, now, any line in the poem. You will find 
the same thing true. We may, then, make a rule. The 
poem, we may say, consists of groups of syllables, each 
group consisting of two syllables, or sometimes of three. 
In each group, one S3^11able receives extra emphasis, a 
little more than any other syllable in the same group. 

This is the rule, not only for this poem, but for all 
English poetry. If, then, you arrange words so that the 
emphatic S3'llables, when read naturally, will come at 
these intervals, you will be making verse. You will, at 
least, if you comply with one more condition. 

The poem, we have seen, consists of groups of syllables, 
and these groups we called feet. There is another divi- 
sion. The poem is printed in lines. Each line contains a 
certain number of feet. Eurthermore, the whole poem 
consists of groups of lines, or stanzas. How are these 
made up ? In each stanza of four lines, you will find that 
the first and third lines contain four grou23S ; the second 
and fourth, three groups. That is, there is a larger 
grouping than feet. As feet are groups of syllables, so 
lines are groups of feet, and stanzas are groups of lines. 
And all these must follow some regular rule, or, at least, 
some principle of symmetry. 

If you can, now, arrange words so that they will natu- 
rally be read in this way, you will be writing verse. Try 
writing a stanza that shall sound like the first stanza of 
the '^^ Ancient Mariner. ''' By imitating the effect, you will 
the better appreciate the art. 

In this poem, every group — with a variation that will 
be spoken of later — begins with a light syllable, and ends 
wdth an emphasized syllable. Such a foot, if of two syl- 
lables, is called iambic ; if of three, anapestic. In the 



xxii ■ INTRODUCTION 

first stanza the first four groups are iambic ; the fifth, ana- 
pestic ; the sixth and seventh, iambic ; the eighth, ana- 
pest ic ; the ninth and tenth, iambic ; the eleventh, anapes- 
tic- Examine other stanzas in the same way. 

If you have studied music at all, you will see that verse 
is much like music. In music, the groups are called 
measures ; in verse, they are called feet. In music, the 
accent is always at the beginning of the measure. So it 
is in some kinds of verse ; in this kind, however, it is 
always at the end. A measure in music may have many 
notes. A measure in verse very seldom indeed has over 
three. In music, you find length, pitch, and even accent 
indicated. In verse, your only guide is the natural j^ro- 
nunciation of the words, which shows you where to put 
the emphasis. But there is one marked resemblance. In 
music, in two measures of the same length, one measure 
will have two notes, say a half note and a quarter note ; 
another will have three notes, say three quarter notes. 
And these two measures are equivalent in time.l" Just 
so, in verse, an anapest, of three syllables, takes no more 
time than an iambic foot, of two. The syllables are ^vo- 
nounced more quickly, made shorter — that is all. And 
this usually gives the line an effect of speed and light- 
ness. 

Observe, for instance, stanza Iviii. There one line is 
made up entirely of anapests, — " And the sky and the sea, 
and the sea and the sky/^ This is not '^ irregular/'' Cole- 
ridge chose this form deliberately. If he had wished, 
he could have written '' And sky and sea, and sea and 
sky.'"'' But he preferred the swifter effect, and so used 
anapests. 

Let us now, having established our rule, look at the 
exceptions. Take, first, those in the form of the feet. 
The second line of stanza vi. runs, " Merrily did we 
drop/" Surely we cannot say ^' Merr/ly.-'^ The right 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

reading is the natural reading, '' Merrily did we drop/' 
or, putting it in symbols, ^^w^v^^. What has hap- 
pened ? The first foot has simply been inverted. The 
heavy syllable comes, not at the end, but at the beginning. 
Instead of being iambic, the first foot has become, in 
terms of verse, trochaic. The line has the usual number 
of groups and of syllables in the groups, but the arrange- 
ment is varied ; the accent has been drawn ahead, as in 
syncopation in music. This gives a pleasant variety to 
the sound. Other lines of the same kind are " Hither to 
work us weal,"' " Red as a rose is she," ^' Nodding 
their lieads before her goes/" Try to find others. 

The poem, we have seen, is divided into lines, and 
these lines are combined in groups, called stanzas. These 
groups consist, usually, of four lines. In each, the first 
and third lines are of four feet, the second and fourth of 
three. That is, each stanza can be divided into two parts, 
into halves, each of these having one line of four feet and 
one of three. And the last syllable of the first half 
rhymes with the last syllable of the second. In the first 
stanza, for example, '''three "at the end of line two 
rhymes with ^'me" at the end of line four. All this 
results in a certain balance between the two parts, a cer- 
tain symmetr}^ Those who have studied music will see it 
is a little like the phrasing that one finds there. Read the 
first few stanzas aloud and note the symmetry of sound. 
Look at the printed page and see how it is represented in 
the form. The two parts of the stanza match, both to ear 
and to eye. 

This stanza is imitated from old ballads. Compare, for 
instance, the following : 

*' It fell about the Martinmas 

Whan nichts are lang and mirk, 
That the carline wife's three sons came hame, 
And their hats were o' the birk. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

" It neither grew in syke nor ditch, 
Nor yet in ony sheugh, 
But at the gates o' Paradise 
That birk grew fair eneugh." 

** The cock doth craw, the day doth daw. 
The channerin' worm doth chide. 
Gin we be mist out o' our place, 
A sair pain we n aun bide." 

You will find this stanza^ too, in many hymns, — in, for 
example, " There is a green hill far away." It is of all 
stanzas, probably, the most common. 

AVhat variations does Coleridge introduce into the form 
of this stanza ? We see at first sight that there are some, 
for the stanzas are many of them of more than four lines. 
"Where are the extra lines inserted ? What is the effect of 
their presence on the rhyme-system ? Let us take up the 
variations one by one. 

The first consist in adding, after the third line, an 
extra line, rhyming with the line that it follows, suspend- 
ing, so to speak, ^ the flow of the stanza. Such in stanza 
Ixxix. is the line, " Which to their corses came again." 
If this line be omitted, the stanza will be like any four- 
line stanza. Of the same kind are stanzas xxxix., xliv., 
xlv., Ixii., Ixiii., Ixiv., Ixxii., Ixxiv., Ixxxii., Ixxxix., 
exxii., cxxxviii. In stanza xii., the extra line follows 
the first line, instead of following the third. 

Another variation is in adding two lines, following out 
the regular structure. Line five, like lines one and three, 
is unrhymed. Line six rhymes with lines two and four. 
Of this type are stanzas * xxiii., * xxiv., * xli., Ix., * Ixv., 
Ixxxiv., Ixxxvi., *lxxxvii., cii., cxvii., cxxi., cxxvi., 
cxxix., cxxxv. Stanzas marked* repeat, in line six, the 
rhyme -word of line four. 

Stanza xlviii. contains all these variations. It ap- 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

proaches very closely, and may have suggested, the stanza 
that Scott uses in ^'^ Marmion/' 

Observe, in addition to wliat is noted above, alliteration, 
the repeating of the same sound — not necessarily of the 
same letter — at the beginning of words that stand near 
together, as in, '' The freeze to hloyf," the ^' ?^;estern z^ave,^^ 
etc. Watch for instances of this. Observe its effect. 

You will find, too, what is known as " medial rhyme,^' 
where the middle of the line rhymes with the end of the 
same line, as in " The guests are met, the feast is set," 
or, *'And he shone bright, and on the right." Usually 
this occurs in the third line of the four-line stanza, or in 
the corresponding line of the longer stanzas. 

Remember that all this deals only with the form. 
Verse may be perfect in form, and yet have not a spark 
of poetry. We have found what makes verse. Let us 
see what more is needed to make a poem. 



IV. What is Poetry ? 

The '' Ancient Mariner " is a poem. What do we mean 
by that ? Simply that it is written in the form known as 
verse ? By no means. There must be something more. 
Not only must poetry have verse ; verse should, to make 
a poem, have added to it — poetry. And what is this 
poetry ? Certainly it is not poetry to say, — 

" I put my hat upon ray head, 
And went into the Strand, 
And there I met another man, 
Whose hat was in his hand." 

This has the form of poetry ; but what is wanting ? Are 
the words too simple ? Look at another stanza, this time 
from the '^ Ancient Mariner '^ : 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

** We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, 

And I with sobs did pray — 
* let me be awake, my God ! 
Or let me sleep alway.' " 

Here the words are no less simple, and the sound is very 
much the same. What is the difference ? What is in 
one that is not in the other ? Nothing in the first would 
move anybody's feelings. Few, in reading the second, 
can fail to feel emotion. The first states facts that neither 
we nor the writer care anything about. The second ex- 
presses an emotion that appeals at once to all. Here is 
one difference — intensity of feeling. 

But all intensity of feeling would not make poetry. 
Suppose you miss a train, are insulted by a street-car con- 
dactor, are exultant over a slirewd bargain in business. 
Would feeling of this sort fit poetry ? Apparently, then, 
we must limit the kind of feeling. It must have dignity, 
a certain elevation, a certain beauty, and must be seen, 
not too crudely, but through softening, enhancing mists 
of imagination. Emotion, then, dignified, beautiful, 
idealized, — not immediate, but recollected in tranquil- 
lity — is one thing needed. And this is about as far as 
we can go. Poetry, some say, is heightened expression. 
It demands heightened thoughts, intensified feeling. To 
write a poem, one must attempt to utter the unutterable ; 
the greater the poem, the more approximate the success. 
But it can never, of itself, quite accomplish its aim. It 
can but take the reader near to the poet's original inspiring 
vision — within sight, perhaps within touch. It is for the 
reader to complete the work ; take, with his own imagina- 
tion, the last step ; bridge the abyss and stand where the 
poet stands, where he invites. 

And this imagination, this ability to respond to the 
summons of poetry, you must find by patience, by con- 
stant fellowship with the best of the world's poets, by 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

open sympathy, by steady striving to cultivate, in your- 
self, tlie poet-sense of the wonder, the unexplored infini- 
tude, of the things about us and over us. 

How shall you best appreciate this particular poem ? 
That is the next point to consider. 

Y. Method of Study. 

At the outset, let us see what not to do. Do not study 
Uie poem as a piece of English to be " parsed." Do not, if 
you are a teacher, make your pupils rewrite it into prose. 
It is not meant to be written in prose. Poetical ideas are 
meant for poetry ; in prose they are out of place — as awk- 
Avard as the poor Albatross must have been if he tried 
to walk the ship's deck. Do not make of the poem a 
combined edition of grammar, spelling-book, dictionary, 
rhetoric, and encyclopedia. It is a j)oem, and as a poem it 
should be studied. 

Avoid merely mechanical methods of study. Point 
out, for examples, words that are suggestive, picturesque, 
poetic, — words that suggest a whole clause of description. 
Do not, however, think that the poetry lies in these par- 
ticular words. They are suggestive here. In another 
place they would be, very likely, as prosaic as any others. 
Too elaborate analysis of the essence of poetry will fail of 
its end. You will merely kill the goose, and get not a 
golden Qcr^g for your pains. Macaulay was right in say- 
ings " The man who is best able to take a machine to 
pieces will be the man most competent to form another 
machine of similar power. In the branches of physical 
and moral science which admit of perfect analysis, he who 
can resolve will be able to combine. But the anal3^sis 
which criticism can make of j^oetry is necessarily imper- 
fect. One element must forever elude its researches, and 
that is the very element by which poetry is poetry. "" 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

How, then, shall we approach the poem ? What plan 
will lead, most helpfully, to sympathetic appreciation ? 

First, gather from the pages that have gone before, the 
individuality of the man who wrote the poem. Next, get, 
incidentally, an idea of why he told the story. After that 
read the whole poem through, rapidly, at one sitting. Then 
you will be ready to study it. 

" Study " has, perhaps, an unfortunate suggestion. It 
recalls struggles with Latin and Greek poems. Say, 
then, rather, that you are to endeavor to extract from 
the poem, not merely what you catch up in casual and 
careless reading, but what you can garner by diligent, 
appreciative search, stanza by stanza, line by line. In 
writing it, the poet pondered every detail. In reading 
it, ponder, in your turn, each slightest sign, that it may 
render up to you the significance that he entrusted to it. 

You may hurry through a gallery of paintings, getting 
but a blurred glimpse of the Avhole array. Or you may 
work your way through, step by step, studying each can- 
vas till you are sure you can make it mean to you what 
it meant to the man that made it. In this poem, each 
stanza is a picture. Slow study, sympathetic repetition, 
will bring out beauties that the hasty reader gets no 
hint of. What is more, whenever, afterward, you read 
the poem rapidly — just as when you pass through the 
gallery rapidly — you will get, in your passing glance, 
not merely the blurred glimpse, but you will recall, on 
the hint of that, all the beauty that you may have found 
in your hour of study. The riches, once extracted, will 
never relapse. 

How is such study to be directed ? Not, as I have said, 
to derivations and such philological facts. These are use- 
ful, but this is not the place for them. Here they are 
useful only so far as they enable you to grasp the poet^s 
precise meaning. It is to help you in this that the notes 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

are inserted, not to administer information important in 
itself. 

Gain from stud}^ of a poem is twofold : appreciation of 
what the poet says, and appreciation of the art by which 
he says it. Add the poet's vision to your vision. Add 
too, to your own power of expression, a little, if only the 
tiniest fragment, of the power that you find in him. 

How are you to appreciate what the poet says ? Eesolve 
to see every scene distinctly. Picture, for example, the 
*^ three '"^ on the way to the feast, and the gaunt figure 
of the Ancient Mariner, picking out, with his glittering 
eye, the " one " who must hear his tale. See, if you can, 
some good illustrations. Dore's, while over-wrought, 
may prove suggestive. But, if your imagination be vivid, 
it will show you better pictures than you can find printed 
or engraved. In this process the teacher should help, by 
questioning his pupils with regard to each scene, and by 
having them compare the mental jDictures that they see. 
This will suggest to each much that would have otherwise 
passed unnoticed. 

Build up each scene from its detail. See, for example, 
that the '' ship '' be not modern. It must harmonize with 
the Ancient Mariner. Recall, if you saw them at the 
World's Fair, the models of the Columbus caravels. If 
you live by the sea, or have ever seen it, recall, from your 
own experience, scenes of calm, of storm, of moonrise, of 
sunset. If you have never seen the sea, recall pictures of 
the sky, of northern lights, star-dogged moons, bloody 
suns. How many of all the pictures in the poem can you 
duplicate in your own experience ? Remember that, after 
this, when you see these things again — a sea-bird following 
a ship, a harbor " strewn with level light " — you will ap- 
preciate them the more for having seen them here, under 
guidance of this sovereign lover of nature's magic, ap- 
proaching them through the golden gate of poetry. 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

Try to appreciate, too, the poet's art. Ask constantly 
what artistic impulse prompted him to select this word, 
this incident, this metrical form. Why could it not, just 
as well, have been otherwise ? Think of all the possible 
means of expression, all the possible turns of the story, 
and try to decide why, of all these, he settled on those 
before us. Examine every detail of the work. Try to 
find what purpose — perhaps, what unconscious purpose 
— inspired it. But do not, in this, lose sight of the 
more important thing — the emotion that pervades the 
whole. 

For method, take a few stanzas at each lesson, dwelling 
on each till, if possible, you have absorbed it into your 
memory, — not only in its words but in its spirit — till its 
poetry has become part of you, without the aid of printed 
letters. Try to enjoy without scorning study, and to study 
without missing enjoyment. Poetry, without pleasure, is 
profitless. 

yi. The Purpose of the Poem. 

Some will tell you to '•' interpret " the poem. You would 
do better not to make the attempt. Shakespeare and 
Browning may need "interpreting" — certainly the}^ get it. 
But beware lest you extract from poems ideas which the 
authors never put in, — which have, in fact, originated in 
your own "' inner consciousness. '^ As to the '*' Ancient 
Mariner," we have Coleridge's own assurance that it is 
innocent of deeper meaning than appears on the face : 

" Mrs. Barbauld once told me that she admired the ' Ancient Mar- 
iner ' very much, but that there were two faults in it, — it was improb- 
able and had no moral. As for the probability, I owned that that 
might admit some question ; but as to the want of a moral, I told 
her that, in my judgment, the poem had too much, and that the only 
or chief fault, if I might say so, was the obtrusion of tlie moral senti- 



INTRODUCTIOJS xxxi 

ment so openly on the reader as a principle or cause of action in a 
work of such pure imagination. It ought to have no more moral 
than the Arabian Nights' tale of the merchant's sitting down to eat 
dates by the side of a well, and throwing the shells aside, and lo ! a 
geni starts up, and says he must kill the aforesaid merchant, be- 
cause one of the date-shells had, it seemed, put out the eye of the 
geni's son."— Coleridge, *' Table-talk" (p. 324). 

Coleridge's leading idea was, it seems (see p. xvii.), 
merely to compose a thrilling poem of the supernatural, 
founded on his friend's strange dream of a ship full of 
dead men. The leading idea must have been the mystery 
of the ocean-spaces, where anything was possible ; and the 
presence of those beings invisible, inhabitants of every ele- 
ment. And it is through these stronger motives that we 
hear, like a quiet flute in the turmoil of an orchestra, 
the tender teaching, " He prayeth best who loveth best." 

A few say that the poem is an alle,o:ory, setting forth, in 
the form of a story, — as does " The Pilgrim's Progress" — 
a ^^ profound philosopliy of life." The ship, such tell us, 
is *Mife, or a life" ; the voyage, progress from childhood 
to maturity, '^ wdien the Me begins to be conscious of itself 
through the pressure upon it of the Not-me." One critic 
says that, without such interpretation, the poem is *^ a 
mere musical farrago." Some of us may prefer musical 
farragos to unmusical metaphysics. Let us take the 
poem as Coleridge meant it, not as ingenious men may 
contrive to imagine that he meant it. Do not let people 
steal from you this beautiful dreamland story, to turn it 
into rather a commonplace sermon. True "interpreta- 
tion" is that which is content to accept, with humble ad- 
miration, the author's simple meaning. 

What is the lesson of the poem ? You will find a little 
of it in the beautiful stanza that tells us to love all crea- 
tures, great and small. You will find far more in the 
spirit of the whole poem — a spirit to which hill and plain, 



xxxii INTRODUCTIOJS 

sea and sky, have not lost their primal wonder, — the splen- 
dor of the time 

*' When meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth and every common sight 

.... did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. '* 



VII. Wider Readin^g. 

Read, besides the '' Ancient Mariner, ^^ a few more of 
Coleridge's poems. " Christabel,'' especially the First 
Part, you will be sure to enjoy, particularly if you will be 
content to appreciate the mystery without demanding an 
explanation. The whole charm of the poem lies in its 
being beyond ex\)lanation. " Kubla Khan " 3^ou will find 
fascinating — most of all, the first lines. Mr. Swinburne 
says of this, ^^For absolute melody and splendour, it were 
hardly rash to call it the first poem in the language, a 
supreme model of music, a model unapproachable except 
by Shelley." You might read, besides these, the '' Ode to 
France," the '' Ode to Dejection," the " Lines to Words- 
worth." '' The Dark Ladie," '' Love." and " Frost at :\Iid- 
night." After this you may wander through the pages of 
his poems, pausing for whatever seems attractive. The 
plays you will find disappointing,' the work of a man 
'' inapt for dramatic poetry." If you read them, it will 
be largely as a study. 

Read, at the same time, if you can, some of the poetry 
of W^ordsworth, — his poems about ^'Lucy" ; a little, here 
and there, of the " Prelude " and the '' Excursion " ; cer- 
tainly the great '^ Ode on the Intimations of Immor- 
tality." Remember that he and Coleridge had, with all 
their differences, much in common. Read, if you can, a 
little of the work of the others of the group of friends,— 



INTRODUCTION xxxui 

Lamb, De Quincey, Southey, Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt. 
See what qualities — if any — their work has in common. 
Make, in brief, this poem a centre, a nucleus, for more 
reading. That will give your work system, and help 
you to keep together as a whole your impressions of one 
period of literature. 



VIIL Some Criticisms on" the Poem. 

The student will be helped, in forming his opinion of 
the *' Ancient Mariner," by noticing what famous critics 
have said of it : 

"It is so well known that it needs no fresh comment. Only I 
will say that it may seem as though this great sea-piece might have 
had more in it of the air and savor of the sea. Perhaps it is none the 
worse, and indeed any one speaking of so great and famous a poem 
must feel and know that it cannot but be right, although he or 
anofher may think it would be better if this were retrenched or that 
appended. And this poem is beyond question one of the supreme 
triumphs of poetry. The 'Ancient Mariner' has doubtless more of 
breadth and space, more of material force and motion, than anything 
else of the poet's. And the tenderness of sentiment which touches 
with significant colour the pure white imagination is here no more 
morbid or languid, as in the earlier poems of feeling and emotion. 
It is soft and piteous enough, but womanly rather than effeminate : 
and thus serves indeed to set off the strange splendours and boundless 
beauties of the story. For the execution, I presume no human eye is 
too dull to see how perfect it is and how high in kind of perfection. 
Here is not the speckless and elaborate finish which shows every- 
where the fresh rasp ©f file or chisel on its smooth and spruce excel- 
lence : this is faultless after the fashion of a flower or a tree. Thus 
has it grown : not thus has it been carved." — A. C. Swinburne, " Es- 
says and Studies," page 264. 

" Neither the poet himself nor his companions seem to have per- 
ceived the extraordinary superiority of this wonderful conception to 
the other poems with which it was published : for not only was its 
subject more elevated, but it possessed in fact all the completeness 



XX xi V IN TROD UCTION 

of execution and faithfulness to its plan which they failed in. While 
Wordsworth represented the light in the landscape chiefly in his 
imitation of the prominence sometimes given by the sunshine to the 
most insignificant spot, Coleridge carried out the similitude on his 
side with a faithfulness of the grandest kind. Like a great shadow 
moving noiselessly over the widest sweep of mountain and plain, a 
pillar of cloud — or like flight of indescribable fleecy- hosts of winged 
vapors, spreading their impalpable influence like a breath, changing 
the face of the earth, subduing the thoughts of men, yet nothing, and 
capable of no interpretation — such was the great poem destined to 
represent in the world of poetry the effect which these mystic cloud 
agencies have upon the daylight and the sky." — Mrs. Oliphant, 
" Literary History of England, 1790-1825." * 

*' Fancies of the strange things which may very well happen, even in 
broad daylight, to men shut up alone in ships far off on the sea, seem 
to have arisen in the human mind in all ages with a peculiar readi- 
ness, and often have about them the fascination of a certain dreamy 
grace, which distinguishes them from other kinds of marvellous 
inventions. This sort of fascination the ' Ancient Mariner ' brings 
to its highest degree ; it is the delicacy, the dreamy grace in his pres- 
entation of the marvellous, that makes Coleridge's work so remarka- 
ble. The too palpable intruders from the spirit world, in almost all 
ghost literature, in Scott and Shakespeare even, have a kind of coarse- 
ness or crudeness. Coleridge's power is in the very fineness with 
which, as with some really ghostly finger, he brings home to our in- 
most sense his inventions, daring as they are — the skeleton ship, the 
polar spirit, the inspiriting of the dead bodies of the ship's crew , the 
' Rime of the Ancient Mariner' has the plausibility, the perfect adap- 
tation to reason and the general aspect of life, wliich belongs to the 
marvellous when actually presented as part of a credible experience, 
in our dreams." — Walter Pater, in Ward's "English Poets." 



IX. Suggested Subjects foe Compositioj^^s. 

A. Suggested Suhjects for Long Comj^iositions. — 1. The 
story of the poem. 2. Description and discussion of the 
human characters in the poem. 3. The supernatural 

* The student will do well to read all that Mrs. Oliphant has to say in this book 
with regard to Wordsworth and Coleridge. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

figures and agencies of the poem. 4. The incident in the 
^^ Ancient Mariner "' that most moves me. 5. The obvi- 
ous moral of the poem. (See page xxxi.) 6. The presence 
or absence of moral motive in the poem. (See page xxx.) 
7. "Why stories of the supernatural sometimes seem true. 
(See page xxxiv.) 8. The lack of human character in the 
poem. (See page XV.) 9. The elements that produce the 
effect of a dream. 10. The poem regarded as a picture 
of the sea. Is it accurate ? Is Mr. Swinburne's criticism 
just ? (See page xxxiii.) 

B. Suggested Suhjects for Short Compositions. — 1. A. 
description of some one scene, — the Death-ship, the Har- 
bor, the Calm. 2. The story of the Albatross, of the re- 
turn to the harbor, of the lising of the dead men. 3. 
A short treatment of one of the topics suggested for long 
compositions. 4. A discussion of the picture suggested 
by some one stanza. 5. A discussion of the form of some 
part of the poem. 

These are merely suggestions, a mere beginning of a 
list, to which each teacher may add indefinitely. See, so 
far as possible, that each pupil write on that phase of the 
poem that most interests him. 

C. Suggestions for Examination. — To some extent build 
questions on the comments in the notes, and on the addi- 
tional comments made in class. Do not ask questions of 
formnl detail, — how many fathom deep the spirit slid, 
what the Albatross ate, in what latitude ice occnrs, and 
the like. Ask rather questions that will lead the pupil 
to look into the meaning and into the poetry of the poem, 
^riie following questions may suggest others : 

1. What happened to the Pilot's Boy ? By what sig- 
nificant detail is it described ? 2. Describe Life-in-Death. 
"Why is her appearance more horrible than that of Death ? 
3. What is meiitioned at the end of every '* Pai-t" but the 



XXX v: TiVTEOD UCTIOJS 

last ? 4. Quote some stanza that you remember as par- 
ticularly musical. Explain its form. 5. What are the 
most effective details in the picture of the calm ? 6. 
'* They stood as signals to the land/' Who? Describe 
the scene. What comment was made on it in the notes ? 



X. Bibliography. 

The standard edition of Coleridge's Poetical Works is 
that which appeared in 1834, the year of his death. The 
latest reprint, that of B. M. Pickering, 1877, is founded 
on this. There is also an edition by W. M. Rossetti, con- 
taining a reprint of the earliest form of the ''^ Ancient 
Mariner. '^ 

For biographies, there is the '' Life of Coleridge,'' by 
James Gillman (1838) ; '' Eeminiscences of Coleridge and 
Southey," by Joseph Cottle (1847); a '^ Life of Cole- 
ridge " (in the English Men of Letters Series), by H. D. 
Traill ; a " Life," in " Lives of Famous Poets," by ^\ . 
M. Rossetti. The new edition of Coleridge's letters 
(Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895) casts not a little new 
liffht on his character and on the circumstances of his 
life. There is also much indirect biography contained 
in the writings of his friends and associates, in theit 
letters, autobiographies, and reminiscent essays. Con- 
sult, for this, the works of De Quincey, Wordsworth. 
Southey, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, John Foster, Hazlitt, and^ 
later, Carlyle. Good examples of the early reviews wiU 
be found in tlie Ediiiburgli Revieiv for September, 1816 , 
in Blackwood's Magazine for October, 1819 ; and in the 
North American Review for October, 1834. Later maga- 
zine articles will be found in Blackwood's for Kjvomber - 
1871 ; in the Atlantic Monthly for April, 1880, and in 
the same magazine for September, 1895. 



INTROB UCTION 2 xx vii 

Helpful essays will be found in Edward Dowdeii's 
'* Studies in Literature," in J. C. S. Shairp's "Studies 
in Philosophy and Poetry/^ in Mrs. Oliphant's ''Literary 
History of England/' and in A. C. Swinburne's '' Essays 
and Studies/' Good, too, especially for older readers, is 
Walter Pater's essay introducing the selections from Cole- 
ridge in Ward's " English Poets." But it would be 
impossible to state in little space all the books that deal 
with a man whose personality was so essentially inter- 
woven with the literary life of his day. 



XXXVlll 



INTRODUCTION 



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THE 

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 

IN SEVEN PARTS 

Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in 
rerum universitate. Seel horum omnium familiam quis nobis enar 
rabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munerar 
Quid agutit ? quae loca habitant ? Harum rerum notitiam semper 
ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Jurat, interea, non 
diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, majoris et meli- 
oris mundi imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta hodiernae 
vitse minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogita- 
tiones. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus. 
ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus. 

T. Burnet ^ : Archteol. Phil., p. 68. 

Translation. — "I find it easy to believe that in the universe the visible beings 
are outnumbered by the invisible. But who shall tell us the nature common to 
these, their rank, their kindreds, the signs by which they are distinguished, the 
gifts in which they excel ? What is their task ? Where is their abode ? Close to 
full knowledge of these wonders, the mind of man has ever circled, nor ever attained 
the centre. Meanwhile, I trust, it will give us profit to contemplate in the mind, 
as in a picture, the image of this other world, greater than ours and better, lest our 
minds, becoming wont to the petty details of daily life, be narrowed overmuch, 
and sink to paltry thoughts. We must, meanwhile, keep watch, with vigilance, 
toward truth, preserving temperance of judgment, that we distinguish things certain 
from things uncertain, day from night." 

^ Burnet was a distinguished divine who flourished in the latter 
half of the seventeenth century, dying in 1715. On the account of 
the origin of the world contained in Genesis he based what for some 
time passed as a scientific treatise. 



PART THE FIRST. 



.n ancient Jt is an ancient Mariner, 

[ariner meet- ' 

th three Gal- And he stoppoth One of three. 

mts biddeu to ^ ^ 

wedding- a By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 
iiueth one. 'Now whercforc stoppst thou me ? 

II. 

*' The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 5 

And I am next of kin ; 
The guests are met, the feast is set : 
May St hear the merry din/^ 

The glosses — Coleridge's prose comments in the margin — should 
be read carefully, both in connection with the poem, and by them- 
selves. They were added, in Sibylline Leaves, some time after the 
poem was written, in imitation of an old custom. You will find 
them of help in indicating the action of the poem. 

I. It is. A beginning common in tales and old ballads. It — tlie 
man 1 am going to tell you about — is. The principal figure is brought 
befoi-e us at once. Ancient Mariner. Why not old sea-faring man, 
as in the gloss at the side of the page ? What difference is there in 
the suggestion ? From what language is each phrase derived ? One 
of three. Why one of three, rather than of four or five ? (See note 
on XIX.) Does the fact that other passers-by are thus mentioned 
add to the mental picture called up by this stanza ? By thy, etc. 
Abrupt, but we guess the speaker. What is gained by indirect* 
description — that is, description introduced not formally, but as if 
by accident ? How do you get your impression of the Mariner ? 
What is it ? Why is the Wedding-Guest introduced ? Why does 
not the Mariner tell his tale directly to the reader ? Why is glitter- 
ing better than shining or flashing ? 

II. Why are Bridegroom, Ilariner, etc., capitalized? 3Iayst, 
Notice the form of the verb used, and the effect of impatience pro- 
duced by the omission of the subject. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



III. 

He holds him with his skinny hand, 
*' There was a ship/"* quoth he. 
** Hold off ! unhand me, gray-beard loon ! " 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 



10 



The Wedding. 
Guest is spell- 
bound by the 
eye of the old 
sea-faring 
man, and con- 
strained to 
hear his tale. 



IV. 

He holds him with his glittering eye — 
The Wedding-Guest stood still, 

And listens like a three years' child : 
The Mariner hath his will. 



15 



The AVedding-Guest sat on a stone ; 

He cannot choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man. 

The bright-eyed '■Mariner. 



20 



III. Th^ Mariner ignores the Guest's protest. He seems not to 
hear it. This increases the uncanny impression. What kind of 
being, we ask, is this, on whom words liave no effect ? There was a 
ship. The ship, as, later, the Albatross, the calm, and the Death- 
ship, appears suddenly, as things appear in dreams, without expla- 
nation or preparation. We are in a world of wonders. Loon. Com- 
pare Macbeth, "The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon" 
(Act v., se. iii., line 2). Eftsoons, immediately, straightway. To 
us the word has a more leisurely suggestion. I/ropt. How does this 
verb compare in tense with holds 9 What do you observe with re- 
gard to tenses throughout the opening stanzas ? What is the effect 
of this uncertainty of time ? Observe the spelling. Can you find 
other words in the poem similarly spelled ? 

V. Does hriglit, in hrigJd-eyed, suggest glittering ? Is it not, per* 
haps, unfortunately cheerful in suggestion ? 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 

VI. 

** The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared. 
Merrily did we drop 
Belo\^r the kirk, below the hill. 
Below the lighthouse top. 

VII. 



The Mariner 
tells how the 
ship sailed 
southward 
with a good 
wind and fair 
weather, till 
it reached the 
Line. 



'' The sun came up w^on the left. 
Out of the sea came he I 
And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea. 



25 



viir. 



*' Higher and higher ever}^ day. 
Till over the mast at noon — " 
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast. 
For he heard the loud bassoon. 



30 



VI. A moment ago we learned that there was a ship. Suddenly 
we are aboard and under way. Drop. Used in a nautical sense, — 
move down the coast. Below the lighthouse top is, in this con- 
nection, a little confusing. Probably the poet had in mind here the 
related idea of the lighthouse top dropping — vanisliing — last of all, 
t)elow the horizon. 

VII. Compare the beginning of Tennyson's poem, Tlie Voyage. 
Read, also, Longfellow's Tlie Discoverer of the North Cape, whi-ch 
in a small degree, recalls the manner of this. Observe how quickly 
the story has passed into the open sea, where anything may happen. 

VIII. "When the Ancient Mariner [ Was it the Ancient Mariner ?] 
thought he heard ' the loud bassoon,' he probably heard nothing of 
the kind." — F. W. Apthorp, in Boston Symphonn Orchestra Pro- 
aramme. Is the criticism true ? If it is, is it important ? 



THE ANCIENT 31ARINEB 



IX. 



The Wedding- 
Guest hearetli 
the bridal 
music ; but 
the Mariner 
contiuueth his 
tale. 



The bride liatli paced into the hall, 

Red as a rose is she ; 
Nodding their heads before her goes 

The merry minstrelsy. 



35 



X. 



The ^Yedding•-Gllest he beat his breast, 

Yet he cannot choose bnt hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man. 



The bright-eyed Mariner. 



40 



The ship 
drawn by a 
storm toward 
the south pole. 



XL 

'' And now the Storm-Blast came, and he 
AYas tyrannous and strong : 
He struck with his overtaking wings. 
And chased us south along. 



IX. Their heads . . . goes. Is this violation of the rule of concord 
justifiable? Why? Cf. "But first the nodding minstrels go," 
Coleridge, Ballad of the Darlx Ladle. Why is nodding appropriate ? 

X. This stanza is repeated almost verbatim from V. A critic con- 
demns Coleridge for " trying to awaken our feelings by the force of 
verbal iteration." What do you think of the charge ? 



XI. Is the "along" called for by the thought, or by the rhyme, 
or by both ? What figure of speech is used in this stanza ? 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XIL 



With sloping masts and dipping prow, 45 

As who pursued with yell and blow 

Still treads the shadow of his foe. 
And forward bends his head. 

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast. 
And southward aye Ave lied. 50 

XIII. 

And now there came both mist and snow. 

And it grew wondrous cold : 
And ice, mast-high, came floating by. 

As green as emerald. 

XIV. 

The land of And throusfli the drifts the snowy clifts 55 

ice, and of -T .- in 

fearful Did Send a dismal sheen : 

no living Nor shapcs of men nor beasts we ken — 

thing was to be m, • n u 4- 

seen. The ice was ail between. 

XII. If you have ever seen a gale at sea, recall the picture. If not, 
try to find some good picture to help your imagination. Make a 
mental picture of the ship, with sloping masts, etc. Treads the 
shadoiv. What does this mean ? What does it imply ? How is aye 
to be pronounced in this sense ? See the dictionary. This stanza 
contains six lines. How are they distributed ? See the Introduc- 
tion, III. 

XIII, Suggested, it may be, by Captain James's Strange and 
Dangerous Voyage, published in London, 1633. The book describes 
''Ice as high as our Top-Mast-IIead," which had "sharp blue cor- 
ners," and made " a hollow and a hideous noise." See correspond- 
ence in the Athenceum, 1890. The ice, like the other apparitions, 
comes with no preparation. 

XIY. Drifts. Snowdrifts? Would " clifts " then show through 
them ? Try the word in the sense of driving clouds of mist and 
snow. Clifts. An old form, a confusion, perhaps, of "cliffs" and 
*' clefts." Cf Robinson Crusoe, " climbed up the clifts of the shore." 
Sheen. Like the cold light of a snow-storm. All between. Between 
what ? How is betiveen used here ? 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XV. 



The ice was here, the ice was there. 

The ice was all around : 60 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled. 

Like noises in a swound I 



Till a great 
sea-bird, 
called the 
Albatross, 
came througti 
the snow-fog, 
and was re- 
ceived with 
freat joy and 
ospitality 



XVL 

At length did cross an Albatross : 
Thorough the fog it came ; 

As if it had been a Christian soul. 
We hailed it in God's name. 

XVII. 

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it flew. 

The ice did split with a thunder-fit ; 
The helmsman steered us through ! 



65 



ro 



XV. Swound. Archaic for *' swoon." Like noises that one hears 
when swooning. Try to imagine them. 

XVI. Did cross. Crossed our course. Compare the common 
phrase, "I came across it." Thorough. The old form of *' through '* 
is used here for metrical convenience. Why woukl not "tliroiigh " 
fit as well ? Realize, as vividly as you can, tlie delight of the^t- men, 
so long out of sight of land, at meeting a living tiling. 

XVII. jrad eat. A form of the verb now obsolete and inelegant. 
Thunder-fit. A noise like thunder, "A burst of thunder-sound." 
Steered tis through. Recall the old story of the Argo and the Sym- 
plegades. A dim recollection of it may have been in Coleridge's 
mind. See Murray's 3Ianual of Mythology, pp. 273-274. Read 
William Morris's Jason. See, too, Swinburne : 

" When the oars won their way 
Where the narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits of Propontis with spray.'* 



and lol the 

Albatross 
proveth a bird 
of good omen, 
and followeth 
the ship as it 
returned 
northward, 
through fog 
and floating 
ice. 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 9 

XVIII. 

And a good south wind sprung up behind ; 

The Albatross did follow. 
And every day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners^ hollo ! 

XIX. 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 75 

It perched for vespers nine ; 
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white moon-shine." 



The ancient 
Mariner 
inhospitably 
killeth the 
pious bird of 
good omen. 



XX. 

God save thee, ancient Mariner ! 

From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! — 80 
Why lookst thou so ?'^ — '' With my cross-bow 

I shot the Albatross/^ 



XIX. Shroud. One of the supporting ropes that run from the mast- 
head to the side of the ship. Vespers nine. Vespers suggests the 
religion of the world in the time in which the scene is laid. What 
was it ? Nine. The prevailing numbers in this poem are three, five, 
seven, and nine. The odd numbers have always been regarded as 
particularly appropriate to the mystical or supernatural. See, for 
example, Rossetti's Blessed Damozel : 

*' She had three lilies in her hand. 

And the stars in her hair were seven.'' 

Tennyson writes, in the Hesperides : 

"... Five and three, 
Let it not be noised abroad, make an awful mystery.** 

There are, you remember, nine muses, seven wonders of the world, 
three fates, etc. 

XX. God save thee ! Why does he say this ? What has happened ? 
Note the abruptness of the answer. It begins in the middle of the 
line. Can you find another line so abruptly broken in the middle ? 
See how this form emphasizes the answer. Cross-hoiv. In what age 
of the world was the cross-bow used? What was it? Each part 
ends with mention of the Albatross. Why ? 



PART THE SECOND. 



XXI. 



^' The Sun now rose upon the right : 
Out of the sea came he. 
Still hid in mist, and on the left 85 

Went down into the sea. 

XXII. 

And the good south wind still blew behind. 

But no sweet bird did follow. 
Nor any day, for food or play. 

Came to the mariners' hollo I 90 

XXIII. 

His ship. And I had done a hellish thing. 



against the And it would work 'em woe : 

ner, for killing For all averred, I had killed the bird 

g<x)diuck. That made the breeze to blow. 

*Ah, wretch !' said they, 'the bird to slay, 95 
That made the breeze to blow ! ' 



XXI. Varied from XXVII. Why is the change first mentioned 
here ? They had ah-eady been saih"ng north " for vespers nine.*' 

XXII. Varied from what previous stanza ? 

XXIII. 'E7n. Would a writer of to-day be likely to use this in a 
serious poem, even if, according to one critic, it is " a sign not of 
barbarism, but of a fondness for the choicest of Old English " ? 
What contractions are not out of place in poetry ? 



THE ANCIENT 3IARINER 



11 



But when the 
fog cleared 
off, they jus- 
tify the same, 
and thus make 
themselves 
accomplices 
in the crime. 



The fair breeze 
continues ; the 
ship enters the 
Pacific Ocean 
and sails north- 
ward, even till 
it reaches the 
Line. 



The ship hath 
been suddenly 
becalmed. 



XXIV. 

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head. 

The glorious Sun uprist : 
Then all averred, I had killed the bird 

That brought the fog and mist. 100 

* 'Twas right/ said they, * such birds to slay. 

That bring the fog and mist.^ 

XXV. 

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew. 

The furrow followed free : 
We were the first that ever burst 105 

Into that silent sea. 

XXVI. 

Down dropt the breeze, the sail?> dropt down. 

'Twas sad as sad could be ; 
And we did speak only to break 

The silence of the sea ! 1 10 



XXIV. Pause after red. The plu-ase UTce God's own head mod- 
ifies Sun. Read carelessly, the stanza makes nonsense. 

XXV. The original edition reads foUoived free. Coleridge changed 
it to "streamed off free," observing that, seen from shipboard the 
furrow did not follow, but streamed off. Later, however, he re- 
sumed the first form, for the sake of smoothness of sound ; also, to 
some extent, for the sake of swiftness. Compare the effect of the 
two. Observe that this weighing of forms must be the constant task 
of every conscientious writer. Into that silent sea. The silent sea 
comes as suddenly as the ice and the Albatross. Compare a similar 
phrase in KuUa Khan : 

" Where Alph the sacred river ran 
Through caverns measureless to man, 
Down to a sunless sea." 

XXVI. Note how the speed of line 105 is checked in the halting 
movement of line 107. You can feel the ship stop. Why is it hard 
to read line 107 rapidly ? Why did the writer put such a line here ? 
Why not doivn di^opt the sails, keeping the same order as the first 
clause ? This stanza ends with the same rhyme-word, sea, as the 
last. Xot-e the dreary effect. 



13 THE AisCIENT MARINER 



XXVII. 

All in a hot and copper sky, 

The bloody Sun, at noon. 
Right up above the mast did stand, 

No bigger than the Moon. 

XXVIII. 

Day after day, day after day, 115 

AVe stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 

As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 

XXIX. 

And the Ai- Water, water, everywhere, 

to beavenfiS? And all the boards did shrink ; 120 

Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink. 

XXX. 

The very deep did rot : Christ ! 

That ever this should be ! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 125 

Upon the slimy sea. 

XXVII. AU. What does ifc mean here ? Note the effect of each 
adjective. Is any superfluous ? Why is copper appropriate ? 

XXVI n. Day after day. The repetition suggests the monotony. 
Stuck. Not a pretty word ; but can you find a pretty word that shall 
be as forcible ? 

XXIX. Why could they not drink it ? Why was not the presence 
of the water cooling ? 

XXX. With legs. What kind of slimy things does this suggest? 
The repetition of slimy adds force. 



THE AJSCIENT MARINER 13 



XXXl. 

About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night ; 

The water, like a witch's oils. 
Burnt green, and blue, and white. 130 

XXXII. 

A spirit had And some in dreams assured were 
them; oueof Of the Spirit that 2^1agued us so : 

inhabitants of Kiuc fatlioui deep he had followed us 
neSh^erdepart. From the land of mist and snow. 

ed souls nor 

angels ; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, 
Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate 
or element witliout one or more. , 

XXXIII. 

And ever)^ tongue, through utter drought, 135 

Was withered at the root ; 
We could not speak, no more than if 

We had been choked with soot. 

XXXL Rout See dictionary. Death-fires. Phosphoric lights, 
corpse- candles. Perhaps, too, St. Elmo's fires, the mast-head lights 
that sailors call "corposants." Witclvs oils. The use of strange 
fires was a common device of necromancers. 

XXXII. Is the reader really supposed to look up these learned 
authorities mentioned in the gloss ? Can you find any other reason 
for their being mentioned here ? Assured were. Learned certainly 
what they had suspected. Perhaps merely "learned." What Latin 
idiom is the phrase a little like ? A fathom is six feet. Here the 
actual depth is of little moment. Nine is chosen merely as a " mys- 
tical " number. The Spirit keeps out of sight. Would it be easy, 
without loss to the effect on our imagination, to make him appear on 
the deck and speak to the Mariner V Read the criticism of Walter 
Pater, on page xxxiv. Plagued. Not used so trivially as by people now. 

XXXIII. The last two lines seem a little prosaic. Why ? Is 
there a double negative in the third line ? Why not ? 



u 



THE AXCIENT MARINER 



XXXIY. 



The ship- 
mates in their 
sore distress 
would faiu 
throw the 
whole guilt on 
the ancient 
Mariner : in 
sign whereof 
they hang ttie 
dead sea-bird 
reund his neck. 



All ! well-a-day ! what evil looks 
Had I from old and young ! 

Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung. 



140 



XXXIV. Well-a-day. A mixture of *' walaway" (an old exclama- 
tion of distress) and "Woe's tlie day 1 " The Albatross appears 
again at the end of the part. 



PART THE THIRD. 



The ancient 
Mariner be- 
boldeth a sign 
in the element 
afar off. 



XXXV. 

There passed a weary time. Each throat 
Was parched, and glazed each eye. 

A weary time ! a weary time ! 14^ 

How glazed each weary eye ! 

When looking westward, I beheld 
A something in the sky. 

XXXVI. 



At first it seemed a little speck. 
And then it seemed a mist : 

It moved and moved, and took at last 
A certain shape, I wist. 



150 



XXXVII. 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ! 

And still it neared and neared : 
As if it dodged a water-sprite. 

It plunged and tacked and veered. 



155 



XXXV. The indefinite something rouses our curiosity as il did the 
Mariner's. 

XXXVI. 1 iinst. Inserted for meaning, or for rhyme ? 

XXXVII. Water-sprite. This comparison keeps us in touch with 
the supernatural. Tacked. Not to be taken as a nautical term. It 
expresses here merely wayward motion. 



16 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XXXVIII. 



At its nearer 
approach, it 
seemeth him 
to be a ship ; 
and at a dear 
ransom he 
freeth his 
speech from 
the bonds of 
thirst. 



With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 

We could nor laugh nor wail ; 
Through utter drought all dumb we stood I 
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 160 

And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 



XXXIX. 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 

Agape they heard me call ; 
Aflashof joy. Gramercy ! they for joy did grin. 

And all at once their breath drew in, 165 

As they were drinking all. 



XXXVIII. The extra line adds suspense. See page xxiv. Kote 
the effect of the means by which the Mariner found his voice. 1 1 
was not simply " with difficulty." 



XXXIX. Gramercy. Originally ''grand merci,"" great thanks. 
Here merely intensive. For joy did g?'in. " I took the thought of 
grinning for joy from poor Burnett's remark to me when we had 
climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead with thirst. 
We could not speak for the constriction till we found a little puddle 
under a stone. He said to me, ' You grinned like an idiot.' He 
had done the same." — Coleridge, Table-talk. But is not the realism 
a trifle grotesque ? As they were drinking. Note the appropriate- 
ness of the figure. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



1? 



And horror 
follows. For 
can it be a 
ship that 
comes onward 
without wind 
or tide ? 



XL. 

See ! see ! (I cried) slie tacks no morel 

Hither to work us weal, — 
Without a breeze, without a tide. 

She steadies with upright keel ! 



170 



XLI. 



The western wave was all a-flame. 
The day was well-nigh done ! 

Almost upon the western wave 
Rested the broad bright Sun ; 

When that strange shape drove suddenly 
Betwixt us and the Sun, 



175 



XL. She steadies. Used chiefly of vessels. Are the last two 
lines of the stanza as joyful as the first ? Is there not dread mixed 
with them ? Compare Longfellow's Phantom Ship: 

" On she came with a crowd of canvas, 
Right against the wind that blew, 
Until the eye could distinguish 
The faces of her crew." 

The ''Flying Dutchman" always came, as in the old ballad, "to 
windward." The first steamships terrified ignorant sailors by doing 
the same thing. Compare Longfellow's Ballad of Carmilhan : 

" A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew, 

In tempests she appears ; 
And before the gale, or against the gale, 
She sails without a rag of sail, 

Without a helmsman steers." 

The whole poem, in many ways, will recall the Ancient JIariner. 

XLI. With this comes certainty of the supernatural. The sail 
becomes that strange shape. (One editor reads "ship.") Observe 
the repetition of the rhyme-word Sun. Compare Poe's Annabel 
Lee: 

" In her sepulchre there by the sea. 
In her tomb by the sounding sea." 



Broad. What does this imply ? 
an enlarged circle ? 



Is the sun elongated, or simply 



18 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



XLII. 



It seemeth 
Mm but the 
ekeleton of a 
ship. 



And straight the Sun was flecked with bars. 

(Heaven^s Mother send us grace !) 
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered. 

With broad and burning face. 180 



XLIII. 

Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,) 

How fast she nears and nears ! 
Are those Tier sails that glance in the Sun, 

Like restless gossameres ? 



XLIV. 



And its ribs 
are seen ag 
bars on the 
face of the set- 
ting Sun. 
The Spectre- 
Woman and her 
Death-mate, 
and no other ou 
board the skel- 
eton-ship. 



Are those lier ribs through which the Sun 
Did peer as through a grate ? 

And is that Woman all her crew ? 

Is that a Death ? and are there two ? 
Is Death that Woman's mate ? 



185 



XLII. Heaven's Ilother. 
feelings joyful now ? 



See note on stanza XIX. Were his 



XLIII, Is he glad that she is nearmg fast ? Why is Jier itahcized ? 
Read the line aloud. Why is Woman capitalized ? Why a Death 9 
Why not simply Death ? 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



19 



Like vessel, 
like crew 1 



XLV. 

Her lips were red, her looks were free. 

Her locks were yellow as gold : 
Her skin was as white as leprosy. 
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she. 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 



190 



Death and 
Life-in- 
Death have 
diced for the 
ship's crew, 
and she (.the 
latter) wiuueth 
the ancient 
Mariner. 



No twilight 
within the 
courts of the 
Sun. 



XLYI. 

The naked hulk alongside came, 195 

And the twain were casting dice ; 
The game is done ! I'v^e won, I've won!' 

Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 



XLVII. 

The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out : 

At one stride comes the dark ; 200 

"With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. 
Off shot the spectre-bark. 



XLV. Why is Death not described as well as Life-in-Death ? Red 
lips and golden hair are certainly not in themselves repelling. It is 
only when we join to them slxin as white as leprosij that the picture 
becomes liorrible, — the more horrible for the contrast. Have these 
contradictory details any fitness to the character ? Think of her 
name. 

XLYI. Xaked even of planking, since the ribs show. Why does 
she whistle ? Why thrice ? See note on XIX. Originally another 
stanza followed this : 

'• A gust of winde sterte up behind, 
And whistled through his bones : 
Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of hia mouth. 
Half whistles and half groans." 
What reason can you see for omitting it ? 

XLVII. Note the rapidity of the scene. To what words is it chiefly 
due ? What would cause the "whisper " ? Observe the very poeti- 
cal form of the gloss. What is meant by it ? Where are the 
** courts of the sun " ? 



zo 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XLVIII. 



At the rising 
©f the »Iooih 



We listened and looked sideways up i 
Eear at my heart, as at a cup. 

My life-blood seemed to sip ! 205 

The stars were dim, and thick the night, 
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white ; 

From the sails the dew did drip — 
Till clomb above the eastern bar 
The horned Moon, with one bright star 210 

Within the nether tip. 



XLIX. 



One after 
enothev, 



One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, 

Too quick for groan or sigh. 
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang. 

And cursed me with his eye. 215 



XI. VIII. Looked sideways up. Why not directly np or down ? 
What does the position imply ? Observe the fitness of the compar- 
ison. Recall some time when you have been afraid. His lamp. In 
front of the steersman a small, partly covered lamp illuminates the 
compass. The light reflected on the steersman's face would have 
a ghastly effect. The detv did drip. Suggestive of what kind of 
weather ? of wind ? Clomh. Would you use this in prose ? Ten- 
nyson writes: 

" And dewed with showery drops 
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse." —Lotos- Eaters. 

Bar, edge of the sea. Often it shows, at moonrise, as a bright bar. 
Horned, two syllables. WiUtin. Was it actually within? Could 
it have been ? Observe the form of the stanza. See the Introduc 
tion, p. xxiv. 



XLIX. *' It is a common superstition among sailors that something 
is going to happen when stars dog the moon." — Coleridge. 



THE ANCIENT 3IARINER 



ai 



His shipmates 
€lrop down 
dead. 



Four times fifty living men, 

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 

With lieavy thump, a lifeless lump. 
They dropped down one by one. 



LI. 



BotLife-in- 
Death be- 
gins her work 
on the ancient 
Maxiner. 



The souls did from their bodies fly,— 

They fled to bliss or woe ! 
And every soul, it passed me by. 

Like the whizz of my cross-bow 1 " 



220 



L. Thump, lump. This rhyme sounds, to the modern ear, nn- 
dignified. Perhaps this is because so many undignified words— 
•* bump," ** dump," *' hump," etc. — end in this way. But the sound 
seems to have had more dignity. In an old ballad we are told quite 
seriously of a man who was " in doleful dumps." 

LI. And every soul. Compare the last lines of Rossetti's Sister 
Helen : 

" Ah I what white thing at the door has crossed. 
Sister Helen ? 
Ah 1 what is this that sighs in the frost ? " 
** A soul thafs lost as mine is lost, 
Little brother I " 
{Oh Mother, Mary Mother, 
Lost, lost, all lost between Hell and Heaven H 

The last lines of this part carry us back to the Albatross. 



PART THE FOURTH. 



The Wedding. 
Guest feareth 
that a Spirit is 
talking to him; 



LII. 

" I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner I 
I fear thy skinny hand ! 
And thon art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand. 



225 



But the an- 
cient Mariner 
assureth him 
of his bodily 
life, and pro- 
ceedeth to I'e- 
late his horri- 
ble penance. 



LIII. 

** I fear thee, and thy glittering eye, 
And thy skinny liand, so brown/' — 

'' Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest ! 230 

This body droj)t not down. 

LIV. 

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 

Alone on a wide, wide sea ! 
And never a saint took pity on 

My soul in agony. 235 



LII. The fear is explained in the gloss. Read LII. in clo^^o con- 
nection with what precedes. Lines three and four w;^ re C(>iii))0:sed 
by Wordsworth. Do they join on smoothly, or can yon detect tlie 
patch ? Rilhed. Sea-sand, at low tide, is marked by np[.u's. lei't 
by the receding waves. 

LIV. Note the repeated aloyie, with its long vowel. See above, in 
the quotation from Rossetti, a similar repetition of " lost.'* Never a 
saint. Why never instead of " not " 9 Is there a difference in force ? 
In what churches are saints prayed to ? 



THE ANCIENT 3IARINEB 



23 



LV. 

The many men, so beautiful ! 

And they all dead did lie ; 
And a thousand thousand slimy things 

Lived on ; and so did I. 



LVI. 



I looked upon the rotting sea. 
And drew my eyes away : 

I looked upon the rotting deck. 
And there the dead men lay. 



240 



LVIL 



I looked to Heaven and tried to pray ; 

But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 

My heart as dry as dust. 



245 



LV. So heautiful. In themselves ? Lamb — in a perverse mood — 
suggested that they were "Vagabonds, all covered with pitch." 
But what does Coleridge mean ? Does he not mean beautiful as 
higher works of God, beautiful in comparison with the "slimy 
things" that lived on ? The Mariner's cure was not yet complete. 
He could not yet love and admire all that God had made. 

LVI. Rotting. Recall, if you have ever seen one, a pool of stag- 
nant salt water. What do you observe in the form and sound of 
lines one and three ? 



LVII. What is the heart compared to ? 
rhyme ? How wouM you spell gusht 9 



Is gusht and dust a good 



u 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



LVIII. 

I closed my lids, and kept them close. 

And the balls like pulses beat ; 
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the 

sky 250 

Lay like a load on my weary eye. 

And the dead were at my feet. 



LIX. 



But the onree 
fiveth for him 
in the eye of 
the dead men. 



The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 

Nor rot nor reek did they : 
The look with which they looked on me 

Had never passed away. 



255 



LX. 



An orphan's curse would drag to Hell 

A spirit from on high ; 
But oh ! more horrible than that 

Is a curse in a dead man's eye ! 260 

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 

And yet I could not die. 



LVIll. Notice the anapestic third line. What alliteration do you 
observe ? 

LIX. Reeh. See the dictionary. This is the first stage of the 
punishment ; the beginning of Life-in-Death. 

LX. Seven. See note on stanza XIX. 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



LXI. 



In his loneli- 
ness and fixed- 
ness he yeara- 
eth towards 
the journeying 
Moon, and the 
stars that stUl 



The moving Moon went up the sky. 
And nowhere did abide : 

Softly she was going up. 
And a star or two beside — 



265 



LXIL 



Her beams bemocked the sultry main. 

Like April hoar-frost spread ; 
But where the ship's huge shadow lay, 
The charmed water burnt alway 
A still and awful red. 



sojoum,yet still 
move onward ; 
and everywhere 
the blue sky be- 
longs to them, 
and is their ap- 
pointed rest, 
and their native 
country and 
their own nat- 
ural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and y«* 
there is a silent joy at their arrival. 



270 



LXIIL 



By the light of 
the Moon he 
beholdeth 
God's crea- 
tures of the 
great calm. 



Beyond the shadow of the ship, 

I watched the water-snakes : 
They moved in tracks of shining white. 
And when they reared, the elfish light 
Fell off in hoary flakes. 



275 



LXI. Read the gloss aloud. What poetical thought is in it that is 
not in the text ? While it is prose in form, it is in substance as 
poetical as any part of the poem. 

LXII. Written continuously with LXI., yet with an independent 
rhynae system, 

LXIII. Elfish, a word of indefinite supernatural suggestion. 

*' Hark, 'tis an elfin storm from faery land, 

Of haggard seeming."— Keats, Eve of St, Agnes. 



^ THE ANCIENT MARINER 



LXIV. 



Within the shadow of the ship 

1 watched their rich attire : 
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black. 
They coiled and swam ; and every track 280 

Was a flash of golden fire. 



LXV. 

Their beauty happy living things ! no tonsjue 

wid their ^, ^* \ ° - Z^r A ^ 

happiness. Their beauty might declare : 

A spring of love gushed from my heart. 

And I blessed them unaware ! 285 

Be »)e88eth Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 

heart. And I blessed them unaware ! 



LXVI. 

The spell be. The self same moment I could pray ; 

pne to break. ^ . 

And from my neck so tree 
The Albatross fell off, and sank 290 

Like lead into the sea. 



LXrV. Their color appears more clearly in the still and awful red 
of the ship's shadow. Recall, if you have seen it, the phosphorescence 
of sea-water. 

LXV. They are no longer slimy things ; they, too, are beautifuL 
Tlie Mariner's perception of this removes, or begins to remove, the 
curse. Compare, for form, stanzas XXITI., XXIV., and XLI. 

LXVI. "What does so free modify ? A Ihatross oi nech ? What 
scene in Pilgrim's Progress does this recall ? The Albatross carries 
the weight of ofEence with it. The story is, for the instant, allegor- 
ical 



PART THE FIFTH, 



LXVII. 



OH sleep ! it is a gentle thing. 

Beloved from pole to pole ! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 295 

That slid into my soul. 

LXVIII. 

By grace of The sillv buckets on the deck, 

the holy r^, . , -, i • j 

Mother, the That had SO long remained, 

ner is refreshed I dreamt that they were filled with dew ; 

^ ^^^* And when I awoke, it rained. 300 

LXIX. 

My lips were wet, my throat was cold. 

My garments all were dank ; 
Sure I had drunken in my dreams. 

And still my body drank. 

LXVII. Sleep. Sleep is much praised by poets. See Macbeth. II., 
ii., 7; the second part of King Henry IV., i., 5-31 ; also KV.its, 
Endymion, Book i., line 453, and what immediately follows. Se^ 
too, the sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, beginning : 

" Come, Sleep ! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace. 
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe." 
Probably you can recall other passages. 31ary Queen. See stanza 
XIX. Slid. Why more appropriate than "came" ? 

LXVIII. Silly, The word first meant Uessed, then innoceyU, then 
simple; finally, fooUsMy simple. Here, empty, useless. Why is 
their uselessness here significant ? 

LXIX. Sure. This same form occurred in the same constructioD 
in stanza LXV. Would you use it in that way now ? 



28 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



LXX. 



I moved, and coiud not feel my limbs 

I was so light — almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep. 

And was a blessed ghost. 



305 



LXXI. 



He heareth 
sounds, and 
eeeth strange 
eighte and 
commotions in 
the sky and 
the element. 



And soon I heard a roaring wind : 

It did not come anear ; 
But with its sound it shook the sails. 

That were so thin and sere. 



310 



LXXII. 



The upper air burst into life ! 

And a hundred fire-flags sheen. 
To and fro they were hurried about ; 
And to and fro, and in and out, 

The wan stars danced between. 



315 



LXX. So light. Remember how you have felt after a long illnessi 
Almost modifies thought. Pause after light. A blessed ghost, as 
opposed to a lost, damned ghost ; or a blessed ghost, as opposed to a 
very miserable living man. 

LXXI. Anear. What is the modern form ? Sere. Usually ap- 
plied to what ? What implied comparison? What is the meaning 
of element in the gloss ? See dictionary. Cf, gloss on XXXII. 

LXXII. Examine the construction of the second line. Fire-flags 
is the subject. The sentence is pleonastic in form. Slieen is an 
adjective modifying flags. We have had it before as a noun. See 
XIV. What lights, sometimes seen in the sky, might be called fire' 
f In what quarter of the heavens do they appear ? 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



29 



LXXIII. 

And the coming wind did roar more loud. 

And the sails did sigh like sedge ; 
And the rain poured down from one black 

cloud ; 320 

The Moon was at its edge. 



LXXIV. 

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 

The Moon was at its side : 
Like waters shot from some high crag, 
The lightning fell with never a jag, 

A river steep and wide. 



325 



The bodies of 

the Bhip'8 

crew are in 

Bph 

the 

on 



epired, and 
the ship moves 



LXXV. 

The loud wind never reached the ship. 
Yet now the ship moved on ! 

Beneath the lightning and the Moon 
The dead men gave a groan. 



330 



LXXVl. 

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
T^or spake, nor moved their eyes ; 

It had been strange, even in a dream. 
To have seen those dead men rise. 



LXXIII. Sedge. The figure is faint to us, since the word is strange. 
Recall the sound of the wind in rushes, tall grass, or corn. 

LXXIV. Pause till you see the picture definitely. 

LXXV. Suppose the wind had reached the ship— would the story 
have been so effective ? 

LXXVL Had. What mood ? How used ? To have seen. Should 
not this be, properly, " to see " ? 



30 TEE ANCIENT MARINER 

LXXVII. 

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; 335 

Yet never a breeze up-blew ; 
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes. 

Where they were wont to do : 
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 

We were a ghastly crew. 340 

LXXVIIL 

The body of my brother's son 

Stood by me, knee to knee : 
The body and I pulled at one rope. 

But he said naught to me." 



Bttt not by 

the goals of 
the men, nor 
by demons of 
earth or mid- 
dle air, but by 
a blessed troop 
of angelic 
Bpirits, sent 
down by the 
invocation of 
the guardian 



LXXIX. 

" I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! '* 345 

'^ Be calm, thou AVedding-Guest ! 
^Twas not those souls that fled in pain. 
Which to their corses came again. 
But a troop of spirits blest : 

LXXX. 

For when it dawned — they dropped their 

arms, 850 

And clustered round the mast ; 
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, 

And from their bodies passed. 



LXXVIII. The body . . . he. Incongruous. But can you change 
he to it 9 

LXXIX. "What previous stanza does this recall ? 

LXXX. What, in the description, hints that not the bodies, but the 
spirits, sing ? 



THE ANCLtlJ^T MAEINER 31 

LXXXI. 

Around, around, flew each sweet sounds 

Then darted to the Sun ; 355 

Slowly the sounds came back again. 
Now mixed, now one by one. 

Lxxxir. 

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 

I heard the sky-lark sing ; 
Sometimes all little birds that are, 360 

• How they seemed to fill the sea and air 

With their sweet jargoning ! 

LXXXIII. 

And now 'twas like all instruments, 

Now like a lonely flute ; 
And now it is an angel's song, 365 

That makes the heavens be mute. 

LXXXIV. 

It ceased ; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon, 
A noise like of a hidden brook 

In the leafy month of June, 370 

That to the sleeping woods all night 

Singeth a quiet tune. 

LXXXII. A-dropping. A is the old " on," — in the act of drop- 
ping. Compare " a-fishing." Sky-lark. An American bird ? Read 
Wordsworth's Ode to a Skylark, and Shelley's. Which do you pre- 
fer ? Jargoning. The confused sound of a flock of birds. 

LXXXIII. Note the music in this and the following stanzas. Ob- 
serve the alliteration in like, lonely, makes, mute, noise, noon, sleep' 
ing, singeth. Would you use "be " in this way in prose ? 

LXXXIV. Why in June rather than in December ? Why at night, 
in sleeping woods ? How does all this detail help ? Like of. Explain. 



32 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



LXXXV. 

Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
Yet never a breeze did breathe : 

Slowly and smoothly went the ship. 
Moved onward from beneath. 



375 



The lonesome 
Spirit from the 
Bouth-pole 
carries on the 
ship as far as 
the Line, in 
obedience to 
the angelic 
troop, but 
Btill requireth 
vengeance. 



LXXXVI. 

Under the keel nine fathom deep. 
From the land of mist and snow. 

The Spirit slid : and it was he 
That made the ship to go. 

The sails at noon left off their tune 
And the ship stood still also. 



380 



LXXXVII. 

The Sun, right up above the mast. 

Had fixed her to the ocean : 
But in a minute she ^gan stir. 

With a short uneasy motion — 
Backwards and forwards half her length 

With a short uneasy motion. 



385 



LXXXV. Note the alUteration. 

LXXXVI. Repeated, in part, from what stanza ? Slid. Why is 
this better than icent, followed, or some such word ? Here there is 
an inconsistency. The gloss to stanza XXV. says : " The ship sails 
northward, even till it reaches the Line." Here the Spirit carries 
the ship as far as the Line. How can he, if it be already there ? 
Either the poet forgot the former stanza, or felt that poetic geog- 
raphy may take licenses. 

LXXXVH. What peculiarity of the stanza suggests the uneasy 
motion f 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 



33 



LXXXVIII. 

Then like a pawing horse let go. 
She made a sudden bound ; 

It flung the blood into my head. 
And I fell down in a swound. 



390 



LXXXIX. 

How long in that same fit I lay, 

I have not to declare ; 
But ere my living life returned, 
I heard and in my soul discerned 

Two voices in the air. 



395 



The Polar 
Spirit's fel- 
low-demons, 
the invisible 
inhabitants of 
the element, 
take part in 
his wrong ; 
and two of 
them relate, 
one to the 
jther, that 
penance long 
and heavy for 
the ancient 
Mariner hath 
been accorded 
to the Polar 
Spirit, who 
returneth 
eouthward. 



xo. 



' Is it he ?' quoth one, ' Is this the man ? 
By him who died on cross. 
With his cruel bow he laid full low, 400 

The harmless Albatross. 



XCI. 

The spirit who bideth by himself 

In the land of mist and snow. 
He loved the bird that loved the man 

AVho shot him with his bow/ 405 



LXXXVIII. Swound. Met once before. Where ? 

LXXXIX. Have not to. Cannot. Living life. Is living super- 



fluous ? Is there, in this poem, life not living ? Discerned. 
voices are perceptible to the spirit as well as to ears of flesh. 

XCI. Note the musical reiteration of loved. 



Spirit 



34 TBE ANCIENT MARINER 

XCII. 

The other was a softer voice. 

As soft as honey-dew : 
Quoth he, ' The man hath penance done. 

And penance more will do/ 



XCII. Honey-dew. Just what is honey-dew ? See dictionary. 
Did the poet care just what it meant, in this case, or did he choose 
the words honey and dew for their suggestion of dropping sweetness ? 
Will do. Observe that it is not shall do. The speaker merely know3 
of the punishment. A higher power inflicts it. 



PART THE SIXTH. 



XCIII. 



FIRST VOICE. 



^ But tell me, tell me ! speak again, 410 

Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so fast ? 
What is the Ocean doing ? ' 



XCIV. 

SECOND VOICE. 

' Still as a slave before his lord, 

The Ocean hath no blast. 415 

His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the Moon is cast — 

XCIV. Still, etc. Coleridge borrows from his own play Osono : 

" O woman, 
I have stood silent as a slave before thee." 

Great eye. Here he perhaps recalls a stanza by Sir John Davies : 

" For lo the Sea that fleets about the land, 
And like a girdle clips her solid waist. 
Music and measure both doth understand ; 
For his great crystal eye is ever cast 
Up to the Moon and on her fixed fast." 

— Orchestra, a Poeme of Daundng. 

Compare Keats -. 

" O Moon, far-spooming Ocean bows to thee."— JEyjc^ymion. 



36 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



xcv. 

If he may know which way to go ; 

For she guides him smooth or grim. 
See, brother, see ! how graciously 

She looketh down on him/ 



42C 



The Mariner 
hath been cast 
into a trance ; 
for the anpclic 
power cau»ttli 
the ve«^6el to 
drive north- 
ward faster 
than hnraau 
life could 
endure. 



XCVI. 

FIRST VOICE. 

But why drives on that ship so fast. 
Without or wave or wind ? ^ 

SECOND VOICE. 

The air is cut away before. 
And closes from behind. 



425 



XCVII. 

Fly, brother, fly ! more high, more high ! 

Or we shall be belated : 
For slow and slow that ship will go. 

When the Mariner's trance is abated.' 

XCVIII. 



The supernat- 
ural motion is 
retarded ; the 
Mariner 
awakes, and 
his penance 
begins anew. 



I woke, and we were sailing on 430 

As in a gentle weather : 
^Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high ; 



The dead men stood together. 



XCVI. Or. What would this be in prose ? 

XCVII. Slow and sloiv. How different in effect from " slow, r 
and slower " ? Abo fed. Not ordinarily applied to so passive u 
state. 

XCVIII. A iveather. Why a 9 



TEE ANCIENT MARINER 37 

XOIX. 

All stood together on the deck. 

For a charnel-duiigeon fitter : 435 

All fixed on me their stony eyes 

That in the Moon did glitter. 



C. 



The pang, the curse, with which they died. 

Had never passed away : 
I could not draw my eyes from theirs, 440 

Nor turn them up to pray. 



CI. 



And now this spell was snapt : once more 

I viewed the ocean green, 
And looked far forth, yet little saw 

Of what had else been seen — 445 



CII. 

Like one that on a lonesome road 

Doth walk in fear and dread, 
And having once turned round, walks on. 

And turns no more his head ; 
Because he knows a frightful fiend 450 

Doth close behind him tread. 

XCIX. Charnel-dungeon. See dictionary. 

CI. Green. Is the ocean actually greeii by moonlight ? 



38 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



And the an- 
cient Mariner 
behcldeth hia 
native 
country. 



cm. 

But soon there breathed a wind on me, 

Nor sound nor motion made : 
Its path was not upon the sea. 

In ripple or in shade. 455 

CIV. 

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 

Like a meadow- gale of spring — 
It mingled strangely with my fears. 

Yet it felt like a welcoming. 

CV. 

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 460 

Yet she sailed softly too : 
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 

On me alone it blew. 

CVI. 

Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed 

The light-house top I see ? 465 

Is this the hill ? is this the kirk ? 

Is this mine own countree ? 



CIII. Visible either by a ripple or by a belt of darker water. But is 
breeze on moonlit water dark ? 

CIV. Gale. In what sense? Welcoming. ** Wel'coming'." Note 
the secondary stress, thrown by the metre on the last syllable. It is 
not so strong as the primary. Cf. mariner, stanza I. 
CV. Note parallel form of lines 1 and 3. 

CVI. The landmarks reappear in reversed order. They come 
without warning. Observe the miraculous swiftness of the journey. 
In what gloss is comment made on it ? Countree. A ballad form. 
Compare the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer : 

" And they waded through blude aboon the knee, 
For a' the blude that's shed on earth 
Ring through the springs o' that countrie.'" 
*' Own country " and " ain country " are common in verse. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 39 

CVII. 

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar. 

And I with sobs did pray — 
* let me be awake, my God ! 470 

Or let me sleep alway/ 

CVIII. 

The harbour-bay was clear as glass. 

So smoothly it was strewn ! 
And on the bay the moonlight lay. 

And the shadow of the Moon. 475 

CIX. 

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less. 

That stands above the rock : 
The moonlight steeped in silentness 

The steady weathercock. 

ex. 

And the bay was white with silent light, 480 
Till rising from the same, 
ngeUc Full many shapes, that shadows were, 

Heave ^ . -^ ^ , 

iad In crimson colours came. 

CVII. let, etc. " Let this prove real. If it be dream, let me 
iream forever." 

CVIII. Streivn. Spread evenly with level light. Observe how 
melodiously the sound of moon is anticipated in moonlight. Shadow. 
Reflected image. 

CIX. What does steady imply here ? Observe the alliteration : 
stands, steeped, steady. 

ex. His back is turned to the deck. He sees the reflected images 
first. 



40 THE ANCIENT MARINER 



CXI. 

And appear A little distance from the prow 

m their own . ^ 

forms of light. Those crimsoii shadows were : 485 

I turned my eyes upon the deck — 

Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! 



CXII. 

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat. 

And, by the holy rood ! 
A man all light, a seraph-man, 490 

On every corse there stood. 

CXIII. 

This seraph-band, each waved his hand : 

It was a heavenly sight ! 
They stood as signals to the land, 

Each one a lovely light : 495 

CXIV. 

This seraph-band, each waved his hand. 

No voice did they impart — 
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 

Like music on my heart. 

CXII. Rood. Cross. Compare the term rood-screen, used of the 
cross-bearing screen in many Anghcan and Catholic churches. 
Seraph-man. Compare Milton's 

"The helmed cherubim. 
And sworded seraphim, 
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed." 

—Hymn on the Nativity. 

CXIII. Signals. Vessels at night summon a pilot by a flare, a 
flame blazing from the deck, lighting spars and sails. Perhaps such 
a sight suggested to Coleridge this picture. 

CXIV. Impart. An odd use of the word. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 4I 

cxv. 

But soon I heard tlie dash of oars, 500 

I heard the Pilot's cheer ; 
My head was turned perforce away. 

And I saw a boat appear. 



CXVI. 

The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy, 

I heard them coming fast : 605 

Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy 

The dead men could not blast. 



CXVII. 

I saw a third — I heard his voice : 

It is the Hermit good ! 
He singeth loud his godly hymns 510 

That he makes in the wood. 
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away 

The Albatross's blood. 

CXV. Cheer. In what sense ? 

CXVI. A joy the dead, etc. Insert that. A joy that the preseoca 
of the dead could not overcome. 

CXVII. Why is the Hermit introduced ? Stirieve. See dic- 
tionary. 



ibewood 



PART THE SEVENTH. 



CXVIII. 



The Hermit of This Hermit good lives in that wood 



Which slopes down to the sea : 515 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 
He loves to talk with marineres 

That come from a far countree. 



CXIX. 

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 

He hath a cushion plump : 520 

It is the moss that wholly hides 
The rotted old oak-stump. 



cxx. 

The skiff-boat neared : I heard them talk, 

'Why this is strange, I trow ! 
Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 
That signal made but now ?' 

CXVIII. Why seven parts ? See note on XIX. 

CXIX. How does this help the story ? Would a priest from the 
town have done as well ? 

CXX. Skiff-hoat. With us, the first part of the word would be 
enough. Troiv. See dictionary. 



THE AISCIENT 3IARINER 43 

CXXI. 

'Strange, by my faith I" the Hermit said — 

^And they answered not our cheer ! 
The planks look warped I and see those sails 

How thin they are and sere ! 530 

I never saw aught like to them. 
Unless perchance it were 

CXXII. 

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 

My forest-brook along ; 
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 535 

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below 

That eats the she-wolf^s young/ 

CXXIII. 

'Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look^ — 

(The Pilot made reply) 
*I am a-f eared' — 'Push on, push on !' 540 

Said the Hermit cheerily. 

CXXIV. 

The boat came closer to the ship. 

But I nor spake nor stirred ; 
The boat came close beneath the ship. 

And straight a sound was heard. 545 

CXXI. Is sere and ivere a perfect rhyme ? Note how the construc- 
tion of the stanza runs over to the next. 

CXXII. Tod. Bush. The description seems a little dispropor- 
tionate. Does it add to our idea of leaves, or of sails ? 

CXXIII. A-feared. Cf. " a-thirst," " an-hungered." 

CXXIV. and CXXV. Note the approach of the sound. Would a 
sudden burst, a thunder-fit, have been so effective ? How does the 
sinking of the ship aid the plan of the story ? 



44 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



The ship sud- 
deply einketh. 



cxxv. 

Under the water it rumbled on. 
Still louder and more dread : 

It reached the ship, it split the bay ; 
The ship went down like lead. 



The ancient 
Mariner is 
saved in the 
Pilof 6 boat. 



CXXVI. 

stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 550 

Which sky and ocean smote. 
Like one that hath been seven days drowned 

My body lay afloat ; 
But swift as dreams, myself I found 

Within the Pilot's boat. 555 



CXXVII. 

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, 
The boat spun round and round : 

And all was still, save that the hill 
Was tellino^ of the sound. 



CXXVIII. 

I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked 

And fell down in a fit ; 
The Holy Hermit raised his eyes 

And prayed where he did sit. 



560 



CXXVT. Seven. See note to XIX. As dreams. See note to ITT. 

CXXVII. Note how the splitting of the bay and the dreadful 
sound are reenforced by the mention of the whirl and the echo. Were 
these omitted, the scene would lose much. 

CXXVIII. Why is the moving of his lips worse to them than his 
silence ? 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



45 



CXXIX. 

I took the oaid : the Pilot's boy. 

Who now doth crazy go. 
Laughed loud and long, and all the while 

His eyes went to and fro. 
' Ha ! ha ! ' quoth he, ' full plain I see, 

The Devil knows how to row/ 



565 



cxxx. 

And now, all in my own countree, 

I stood on the firm land ! 
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat. 

And scarcely he could stand. 



570 



The ancient 
Mariner 
earnestly en- 
treateth the 
Hermit to 
shrieve him ; 
and the pen- 
ance of life 
falls on him. 



CXXXI. 

' shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man V 

The Hermit crossed his brow. 575 

' Say quick/ quoth he, ' I bid thee say — 
What manner of man art thou ?^ 



CXXXII. 

Forthwith tliis frame of mine was wrenched 

With a wof ul agony. 
Which forced me to begin my tale ; 580 

And then it left me free. 



CXXIX. DofJi go. " Go crazy " is common. Here "go" is used 
a little more nearly in the sense of " be." If line two were omitted, 
line four would suggest his madness. 

CXXXI. Note the Biblical effect of the last line. To what words 
is it due ? 



46 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



CXXXIII. 



And ever and 
anon through- 
out his future 
life an agony 
constraineth 
him to travel 
from land to 
land. 



Since then, at an uncertain hour. 

That agony returns ; 
And till my ghastly tale is told. 

This heart within me burns. 



585 



CXXXIV. 



I pass, like night, from land to land ; 

I have strange power of speech ; 
That moment that his face I see, 
I know the man that must hear me : 

To him my tale I teach. 



590 



CXXXV. 

What loud uproar bursts from that door ! 

The wedding-guests are there : 
But in the garden-bower the bride 

And bride-maids singing are ; 
And hark the little vesper bell, 595 

Which biddeth me to prayer ! 



CXXXIII. Some editions, for an ago7iy, in the gloss, read and 
agony. 

CXXXIV. What great traditional " wanderer " of romance does 
this suggest ? Teach. Used in what sense ? That moment. Some 
editions read the. 

CXXXV. Observe the transition from the uproar to the little ves- 
per hell. After tliis the whole tone of the poe._-> changes. This 
stanza is what, in music, would he called a modulating passage, 
changing key and subject. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



4=7 



CXXXVI. 

Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide, wide sea : 
So lonely 'twas, that God himself 

Scarce seemed there to be. 



600 



CXXXVII. 

sweeter than the marriage-feast, 

'Tis sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 

With a goodly company ! — 



CXXXVIII. 

To walk together to the kirk. 

And all together pray. 
While each to his great Father bends. 
Old men, and babes, and loving friends. 

And youths and maidens gay ! 



605 



And to teach, 
by his own 
example, 
love and 
reverence to 
all things th?/. 
God made and 
loveth. 



CXXXIX. 

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest ! 

He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 



610 



CXXXVI. and CXXXVII. Introduced by CXXXV. Why does h© 
prefer the kirk ? What reason does the preceding stanza suggest ? 

CXXXVIII. Gay. Happy, or brightly dressed. Does it modify 
youths and maidens, or only jnaidens 9 

CXXXIX. and CXL. Note the repetition. Note also the progres- 
sion from well to best. Observe how the verse lingers on loveth. 



48 THE ANCIENT MARINER 



CXL. 



He pra3'eth best, who l<yveth best 

AU things both gr^at and small ; 615 

For the dear God who loveth us. 

He made and loveth all." 



CXLI. 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 

AYhose beard with age is hoar. 
Is gone : and now the Wedding-Guest 620 

Turned from the bridegroom's door. 



CXLII. 

He went like one that hath been stunned. 

And is of sense forlorn : 
A sadder and a wiser man, 

He rose the morrow morn. 625 



CXL. All things both great and small. Is there a suggestion of 
Psalms civ., 25 ? Compare the last stanza of Wordsworth's Hart- 
leap Well: 

" One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, 

Taught both by what she shows and what conceals, 
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." 

Read that poem. Compare its lesson with that of this poem. Which 
has the more positive, the more far-reaching moral ? 

CXLI. Why did the Wedding-Guest turn away ? 

CXLII. What does sense mean here ? What two m.^anings has the 
word ? Forlorn. Abandoned. Why was the Wedding-Guest ' * sad- 
der and wiser " ? 



CHRISTABEL 



INTRODUCTION 

This poem was first published, with the following pre- 
face, in 1816: 

"The first part of the following poem was written in tlie 
year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, at 
Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after 
my return from Germany, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, 
my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state 
of suspended animation. But as, in my very first con- 
ception of the tale, I had the whole present in my mind, 
with the wholeness, no less than with the liveliness, of a 
vision, I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the 
three parts yet to come, in the course of the present year. 

"It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at 
either of the former periods, or if even the first and second 
part had been published in the year 1800, the impression 
of its originality would have been much greater than I 
dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own 
indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the 
exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or 
servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a 
set of critics, who seem to hold that every possible thought 
and image is traditional ; who have no notion that there are 
such things as fountains in the world, small as well as 
great ; and who would therefore charitably derive every 
rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some 



50 INTRODUCTION 

other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far 
as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets 
whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, 
either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit 
of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me 
from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, 
would permit me to address them in this doggerel version 
of two monkish Latin hexameters: 

' Tis mine, and it is likewise yours; 

But an if this will not do, 
Let it be mine, good friend, for I 

Am the poorer cf the two. 

"I have only to add that the metre of the Christabel is 
not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so 
from its being founded on a new principle, — namely, that 
of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. 
Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in 
each line the accents will be found to be only four. Xever- 
theless this occasional variation in number of syllables is 
not introduced wantonh^ or for the mere ends of con- 
venience, but in correspondence with some transition, in 
the nature of the imagery or passion." 

Christabel is not merely a story in verse. Regarded as 
a story, it is perhaps disappointing. It cannot be com- 
pared with *^'The Lady of the Lake," or with "Iloratius 
at the Bridge." It is first of all a poem. It appeals to 
us, like the "Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan," 
through its mingling of imagination and melody. It has 
besides, what is called "atmosphere," — which means that 
it takes us into an enchanted world where all that happens 
seems to be carried on in a magic light, to the spell of 
pervading music. It has the tone of dreamy beauty that 
one finds in Lohengrin or in Parsifal. One finds one's 
self wonderino: that no Wa^^ner has ever made use of it. 



INTRODUCTION 51 

Some pupils reading it for the first time, are bewildered, 
and ask : ''What is the idea? What is it all about? What 
has the snake to do with it?" One must be sure to 
get the answer clear at the outset. The subject of the 
poem is the danger that threatens the heroine Christabel 
from a serpent- woman called Geraldine. There are many 
old beliefs in such beings, evil spirits masking in human 
form. Their rightful form is an animal form, and if com- 
pelled by holy charms they can be made to reveal themselves 
in their true shape, — as serpents, or wolves, or, in Japan- 
ese stories, foxes. 

Geraldine is a serpent, a Lamia, assuming human 
form to deceive her intended victim. (There is a wonder- 
ful tale of such a being in. Keats's poem Lamia.) By pre- 
tending helplessness, she induces Christabel to offer her 
shelter in her own home, and even to let her sleep by her 
side. There is about her appearance (disclosed only when 
she disrobes) some horror beyond words, — some sign of 
her real nature that Coleridge leaves to be imagined, "a 
sight to dream of, not to tell." Her touch and presence 
gives her a power over Christabel, who cannot tell what she 
has seen or resist the serpent fascination of this terrible 
being. The stranger's eyes seem to hold her victim as a 
snake's eyes hold the bird that it is to devour. It is in 
vain for her to appeal to her father, for he is so enchanted 
with Geraldine's beauty and apparent innocence that he 
can believe nothing against her. Christabel's only hope lies 
in her mother. 

Her mother is no longer living, but her spirit, as a 
guardian angel, watches over her daughter. About Christa- 
bel as she sleeps, one feels the two influences, Geraldine's 
and the mother's, the evil and the good, contending as 
the good and evil battle in Tannhauser. The poem centres 
about this contest, and by keeping it clearly in mind, one 
will find the story easy to understand. 



52 INTRODUCTION 

Coleridge had planned out the whole poem. He never, 
however, carried his plan out. As he told it to a friend, 
it was as follows : 

Knowing that Bracy will find out and reveal that her 
whole story is made up of lies, Geraldine disappears be- 
fore he returns. (He reports that the castle of Tryermaine 
is a deserted ruin.) But she goes only to return almost 
immediately in a new form — spirits "can .either sex as- 
sume" — in the disguise of Christabel's own betrothed 
knight, the one for Avhose safety she prayed in the forest. 

Christabel feels a strange shrinking from him, yet she 
keeps her word and prepares for the marriage. But at 
the altar, just as she- is about to become the bride ana 
victim of this "demon lover," her real lover appears to 
save her. He is identified by a ring that she once gave 
him ; the evil spirit vanishes ; the castle bell strikes twelve ; 
the mother's voice is heard in blessing; the true lovers are 
wedded; and all is well. 

Opinions about this conclusion differ. Some feel that 
had he been able to apply himself to the task, Coleridge 
could have carried this plan out worthily. Walter Pater 
speaks of it as "an exquisitely limited design." Yet others 
think that not a little of the poem's appeal to us lies in 
the fact that it is not and cannot be finished. No one 
finishes a dream. And there is great suggestion in an in- 
spired fragment. If w^e saw the Venus de Milo or the 
Winged Victory complete, — we migi^t be disappointed. 
The imperfect hint suggests more than gCx^ius could carry 
out. 

In reading the poem, one nnift, as in the oihe^ poems, 
take great pains to bring out the cadence and rliythm of 
the lines. In studying the meter, there should be no forn2c^l 
division into feet, only recognition of the four accents. 
(See Coleridge's own introductory note on page 52.) 

The ideal way to read the poem is to read it as a "wonder- 



INTRODUCTION 63 

tale," a tale set to beautiful music and enriched with mar- 
vellous word pictures and enchanting imagery. Much 
should be memorized. Any one able to enjoy true poetry 
will remember much without effort. 

The poem deals with a different part of England from 
that in which Coleridge wrote the "Ancient Mariner" 
and "Kubla Khan." In writing the first part, Cole- 
ridge had not intended this, but when he began the second 
part, he had changed his home to the so-called Lake 
Eegion, (see Introduction, page xv) and the Castle of 
Sir Leoline is now placed in Cumberland, near Langdale 
Pikes, mountains between Windermere and Keswick. It 
is a country of abrupt mountains, rapid streams, and nar- 
row valleys with beautiful lakes. Bracy's journey would 
carry him to the Scotch border, well to the east of Carlisle. 
These facts are not important in themselves, but it is in- 
teresting to see how thoroughly Coleridge's interests had 
been transferred to his new surroundings, surroundings 
that he and Wordsworth were to make famous. 

Students of literary history may trace the growth of the 
•^'Gothic" type of story, the kind dealing with castles, spirits 
and mystery. Probably Coleridge was greatly influenced 
by the German writers of his own day, Schiller rmd Goethe 
among them. Other "romantic" wor^x that appeared 
about the same time, some a littk lu-cer, were Scott's "Lay 
of the Last Minstrel," Beckford's "Vathek," Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe's- "Mysteries of Udolpho," Walpole's "Castle of 
Otranto,"and Monk Lew^is's "Tales of Wonder and Terror." 
Later, in America, Poe and Charles Brockden Brown car- 
ried out the same tendency. All these are interesting read- 
ing — for those who like stories full of "shudder" and mys- 
tery. 

Some question the poem as a picture of life and character. 
It is not a realistic depiction. It is an emotional ideal 
picture, such as we find in opera. Still, all the element?^ 



54 INTRODUCTION 

that it depicts are in the real world about its — gentle, 
confiding Christabels; evil Geraldines, designing and 
serpentlike ; and mothers whose influence and teaching may 
help even from beyond the grave. And the wonderful world 
of nature — hill and forest and sky, moonliglit and sunlight 
— is about us all, always. In the biggest, deepest sense, the 
poem is true. 



CHRISTABEL 



PART THE FIRST 

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, 
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock, 

Tu— whit ! Tu— whoo ! 

And hark, again ! the crowing cock 

How drowsily it crew. 6 

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich. 

Hath a toothless mastiff, which 

From her kennel beneath the rock 

Maketh answer to the clock, 

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 10 

Ever and aye, by shine and shower. 

Sixteen short howls, not over loud; 

Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. 

Is the night chilly and dark ? 

The night is chilly, but not dark. 15 

1. Observe how all the detail accumulates to give a sense of 
uneasiness and expectation: — midnight, clouded moonlight, early 
spring, the hooting of the owl, the howling of the dog, the ancient 
castle, the disturbing dreams. 

3. Here we have the four accents only, the bare skeletons of the 
meter, one beat to each bar. (See author's note, on page 52). 

13. My lady's, the former lady of the castle, Christabel's mother, 
— the protecting influence through the story. 

14. As in the "Ancient Mariner," all happens with a dream-like 
abruptness. Observe Coleridge's use of question and answer, with 
repetition of the same words, — to arouse nervous expectation. (A 
modern dramatist, Maeterlinck, makes much use of this device.) 

55 



56 CHRIST ABEL 

The thin gray cloud is spread on high. 

It covers but not hides the sky. 

The moon is behind, and at the full; 

And yet she looks both small and dull. 

The night is chill, the cloud is gray : 30 

^Tis the month before the month of May, 

And the Spring comes slowly up this way. 

The lovely lady, Christabel, 

Whom her father loves so well. 

What makes her in the wood so late, 25 

A furlong from the castle gate? 

She had dreams all yesternight 

Of her own betrothed knight; 

And she in the midnight wood will pray 

For the weal of her lover that's far away. 30 

She stole along, she nothing spoke. 

The sighs she heaved were soft and low. 

And naught was green upon the oak 

But moss and rarest mistletoe : 

She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, 36 

And in silence prayeth she. 

The lady sprang up suddenly. 

The lovely lady, Christabel ! 

It moaned as near, as near can be. 

But what is it she caniiot tell. 40 

On the other side it seems to be. 

Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. 



22. Up this way. In England. (When Coleridge wrote Part 
the First he may not have meant the North Country.) 
30. Weal. Welfare, safety. 



CHRISTABEL 57 

The night is chill; the forest bare; 
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 

There is not wind enough in the air 45 

To move away the ringlet curl 
From the lovely lady's cheek — 
There is not wind enough to twirl 
The one red leaf, the last of its clan. 
That dances as often as dance it can, 60 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high. 
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 
Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! 
Jesu, Maria, shield her well! 

She folded her arms beneath her cloal^ 55 

And stole to the other side of the oak. 
What sees she there? 

There she sees a damsel bright, 

Drest in a silken robe of white. 

That shadowy in the moonlight shone: 60 

The neck that made that white robe wan. 

Her stately neck, and arms were bare ; 

Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were. 

And wildly glittered here and there 

The gems entangled in her hair. 65 

I guess, ^twas frightful there to see 

A lady so richly clad as she — 

Beautiful exceedingly! 

*Mary mother, save me now !' 

(Said Christabel,) 'And who art thou?' 70 



58. There is little in the lady to indicate her evil nature. Yet 
note her sudden appearance in this lonely spot, and her unnatural, 
almost unearthly beauty. 



58 CHRISTABEL 

The lady strange made answer meet. 

And her voice was faint and sweet : — 

'Have pity on my sore distress, 

I scarce can speak for weariness: 

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!' 75 

Said Christabel, 'How^ eamest thou, here?' 

And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet. 

Did thus pursue her answer meet : — 

*My sire is of a noble line, 

And my name is Geraldine: 80 

Five warriors seized me yestermorn, 

Me, even me, a maid forlorn: 

They choked my cries with force and fright, 

And tied me on a palfrey white, 

The palfrey was as tieet as wind, 85 

And they rode furiously behind. 

They spurred amain, their steeds were white: 

And once we crossed the shade of night. 
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, 

I have no thought what men they be; 90 

Nor do I know how long it is 

(For I have lain entranced I wis) 

Since one, the tallest of the five. 

Took me from the palfrey's back, • 

A weary woman, scarce alive. 95 

Some muttered words his comrades spoke: 

He placed me underneath this oak; 

He swore they would return with haste; 

Whither they went I cannot tell — 

I thought I heard, some minutes past, 100 



78. Meet. Fitting. 

79. The lady's story is of course entirely untrue. She tells it 
to deceive Christabel into giving her shelter. 



CHRISTABEL 59 

Sounds of a castle bell. 

Stretcli forth thy band' (thus ended she), 

'And help a wretched maid to flee/ 

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand. 

And comforted fair Geraldine : 105 

'0 well, bright dame ! may you command 

The service of Sir Leoline; 

And gladly our stout chivalry 

Will he send fortli and friends withal 

To guide and guard you safe and free 110 

Home to your noble father's hall/ 

She rose : and forth with steps they passed 

That strove to be, and were not, fast. 

Her gracious stars the lady blest, 

And thus spake on sweet Christabel: ' 115 

*A11 our household are at rest. 

The hall as silent as the cell; 

Sir Leoline is weak in health. 

And may not well awakened be. 

But we will move as if in stealth, 120 

And I beseech your courtesy, 

This night, to share your couch with me/ 

They crossed the moat, and Christabel 

Took the key that fitted well ; 

A little door she opened straight. 125 

And in tlie middle of the gate; 

The gate that was ironed within and without. 

Where an army in battle array had marched out. 

18. Chivalry Knights. 

114. Friars. "Bless my stars" is now trivial. Once, when r^^o-le 
believed in astrology, it expressed sincere thankfulness that one's 
stars had brought one good fortune. 



60 CHRISTABEL 

The lady sank, belike through pain, 

And Christabel with might and main 130 

Lilted her up, a weary weight. 

Over the threshold of the gate: 

Then the lady rose again, 

And moved, as she were not in pain. 

So free from danger, free from fear, 135 

They crossed the court : right glad they were. 

And Christabel devoutly cried 

To the lady by her side, 

'Praise we the Virgin all divine 

Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!' 140 

*Alas, alas !' said Geraldine, 

*I cannot speak for weariness.' 

So free from danger, free from fear, 

They crossed the court : right glad they were. 

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old 145 

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. 

The mastiff old did not awake. 

Yet she an angry moan did make! 

And what can ail the mastiff bitch? 

Never till now she uttered yell 150 

Beneath the eye of Christabel. 

Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch: 

For Avhat can ail the mastiff bitch? 

129-134. There was an old belief that no evil spirit had power 
to cross an innocent person's threshold unless that person carried 
it in. We get, then, a hint as to the lady's nature. 

142. Why cannot Geraldine join Christabel in praj'er to the 
Virgin? What does her refusal show? 

149. What can ail. Animals are supposed to recognize the pres- 
ence of spirits more quickly than their master. (Recall the story 
of Balaam.) 



CHRISTABEL 61 

They passed the hall, that echoes still, 

Pass as lightly as you will ! 155 

The brands were flat, the brands were dying, 

Amid their own white ashes lying; 

But when the lady passed, there came 

A tongue of light, a fit of flame; 

And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 160 

And nothing else saw she thereby. 

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, 

Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. 

*0 softly tread,' said Christabel, 

*My father seldom sleepeth well." 165 

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare, 

And jealous of the listening air 

They steal their way from stair to stair, 

Now in glimmer, and now in gloom. 

And now they pass the Baron's room, 170 

As still as death, with stifled breath ! 

And now have reached her chamber door; 

And now doth Gerald ine press down 

The rushes of the chamber floor. 

The moon shines dim in the open air, 175 

And not a moon beam enters here. 

But they without its light can see 

The chamber carved so curiously, 

Carved with figures strange and sweet, 

All made out of the carver's brain, 180 

158. But when the lady. Another sign of an evil spirit passing. 
162. Boss. A rounded metal knob (in the center of a shield). 
167. Jealous. Suspiciously watchful. 
169. A beautiful line. 

174. Rushes. The usual covering for floors in ancient castles. 

175. Compare for the effect of stealth and dim light, Keats's "Eve 
of St. Agnes." 



62 CHRISTABEL 

For a lady's chamber meet: 

The lamp with twofold silver chain 

Is fastened to an angel's feet. 

The silver lamp burns dead and dim; 
^^ But Christabel the lamp will trim. 185 

^^She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, 

And left it swinging two and fro, 

AYhile Geraldine, in wretched plight, 

Sank down upon the floor below. 

^0 weary lady, Geraldine, 190 

I pray you, drink this cordial wine! 
It is a wine of virtuous powers; 
My mother made it of wild flowers.^ 

'And will your mother pity me. 

Who am a maiden most forlorn?' 195 

Christabel answered — 'Woe is me ! ' 

She died the hour that I was born. 

I have lieard the gray-haired friar tell 

How on lier death bed she did say. 

That she should hear the castle-bell 200 

Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. 

mother dear ! that thou wert here !' 

'I would,' said Geraldine, ^she were!' 

But soon with altered voice, said she — 

^Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine ! 205 

187. See how the word "swingino;" makes the picture real. 

188. Does the figure of the angel have anything to do with the 
lady's weakness? 

200. See the plan of the whole story, page 54. This prophecy 
was to have been carried out. 

204. Here Geraldine reveals for a moment her true spirit. Why 
does Christabel fail to understand? To what does she attribute 
the lady's strange words? 



CHRISTABEL 63 

I have power to bid thee flee.' 

Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ? 

Why stares she with unsettled eye? 

Can she the bodiless dead espy? 

And why with hollow voice cries she, 210 

^Off, woman, off ! this hour is mine — 

Though thou her guardian spirit be. 

Off, woman, off ! 'tis given to me.' 

(Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side. 

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — 215 

'Alas !' said she, 'this ghastl}^ ride — 

Dear lady ! it hath wildered you !' 

The lady wiped her moist cold brow. 

And faintly said, 'Tis over now I' 

Again the wild-flower wine she drank: 220 

Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, 

And from the floor whereon she sank, 

The lofty lady stood upright : 

She was most beautiful to see. 

Like a lady of a far countree. 225 

And thus the lofty lady spake — 

"^All they who live in the upper sky. 

Do love you, holy Christabel ! 

And you love them, and for their sake 

And for the good which me befel, 230 

Even I in my degree will try, 

Fair maiden, to requite you well. 

But now unrobe yourself; for I 

221. Observe how the attention is alwaj's drawn to Geraldine's 
eyes. 




64 CHRlSTABEi 

^^0t1 yWj,., are yet in bed I lie/ 

Quoth Christabel, 'Bo let it be!' 235 

And as the lady bade, did she. 
Her gentle limbs did she undress. 
And lay down in her loveliness. 

But through her brain of weal and woe 

So many thoughts moved to and fro, 240 

That vain it were her lids to close; 

So half-way from the bed she rose. 

And on her elbow did recline 

To look at the lady Geraldine. 

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed, 245 

And slowly rolled her eyes around; 

Then drawing in her breath aloud. 

Like one that shuddered, she unbound 

The cincture from beneath her breast: 

Her silken robe, and inner vest, 250 

Dropt to her feet, and full in view. 

Behold ! her bosom and half her side — 

A sight to dream of, not to tell ! 

O shield her ! shield sweet Christabel ! 

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs: 255 

Ah ! what a stricken look was hers ! 

Deep from within she seems half-way 

To lift some weight with sick assay, 

And eyes the maid and seeks delay; 

Then suddenly, as one defied, 260 

239. Of weal and ivoe modifies thoughts. 

249. Cincture. Girdle, belt. 

253. A sight. What did Christabel see? What was the visible 
sign of Geraldine's serpent spirit? Why does not Coleridge tell 
UB? Would it be better if he did? 

258. Assay. Effort, endeavor. 




CHllISTABEL 65 

Collects herself in scorn and pride, ' . - 

And lay down by the Maiden's side ! — 
And in her arms the maid she took. 

Ah wel-a-day! 
And with low voice and doleful look 265 

These words did say: 

'In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell. 
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel ! |^ 

Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow, 
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow; 270 

But vainly thou warrest. 

For this is alone in 
Thy power to declare, 

That in the dim forest 
Thou heard'st a low moaning, 275 

And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair; 
And didst bring her home with thee in love and in 

charity, 
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.* 

267. The effect of the touch of Gerald ine's bosom seems to be 
this: — Christabel, while feeling; the evil power and struggling 
against it, is to be unable to tell what she has seen. She can speak 
only of the bare facts given in lines 274-279. Geraldine has the hyp- 
notic power that a snake exercises over its victim. The bird trembles 
and cries out in terror, yet cannot tear itself away. 

271-275. To be read as if each pair was equal to a long line, — 
or as if each short line had four accents? (See Coleridge's intror 
duction. Compare line 3.) 



66 CHRISTABEL 

THE CONCLUSION TO PAET THE FIKST 

It was a lovely sight to see 

The lady Christabel, when she 280 

Was praying at the old oak tree. 

Amid the jagged shadows 

Of mossy leafless boughs, 

Kneeling in the moonlight, 

To make her gentle vows; 285 

Her slender palms together prest, 
Heaving sometimes on her breast; 
Her face resigned to bliss or bale — 
Her face, oh call it fair, not pale, 

And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 290 

Each about to have a tear. 

With open eyes (ah woe is me!) 

Asleep, and dreaming fearfully. 

Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis. 

Dreaming that alone, which is — 295 

sorrow and shame ! Can this be she. 

The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree? 

And lo ! the worker of these harms. 

That holds the maiden in her arms, 

Seems to slumber still and mild, 300 

As a mother with her child. 

A star hath set, a star hath risen, 

Geraldine ! since arms of thine 

Have been the lovely lady^s prison. 

Geraldine ! one hour was thine — 305 

Thou'st had thy will ! By tairn and rill, 

294. Wis. Think. 

306. Tairn. Tarn, small mountain pool. 



CHRISTABEL 67 

The night birds all that hour were still. 

But now they are jubilant anew. 

From clift' and tower, tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! 

Tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! from wood and fell ! 310 

And see ! the lady Christabel 

Gathers herself from out her trance; 

Her limbs relax, her countenance 

Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids. 

Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds — 315 

Large tears that leave the lashes bright ! 

And oft the while she seems to smile 

As infants at a sudden light ! 

Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep, 

Like a youthful hermitess, 320 

Beauteous in the wilderness, 

Who, praying always, prays in sleep. 

And, if she move unquietly, 

Perchance, His but the blood so free 

Comes back and tingles in her feet. 325 

No doubt, she hath a vision sweet. 

What if her guardian spirit 'twere, 

What if she knew her mother near? 

But this she knows, in joys and woes. 

That saints will aid if men will call : 330 

For the blue sky bends over all ! 

Conclusion to Part First. 

The poet meditates upon the part of the story just told, and 
carries the action a Kttle further through the night. By the touch 
of her bosom Geraldine has accomplished her purpose. (305.) But 
there remains hope. Christabel finds comfort in a dream. Her 
mother is watching over her. The saints will aid. Heaven will 
protect innocence. 



'/ 1l 



PART THE SECOND 

^Each matin bell/ the Baron saitli, 

^Knells us back to a world of death.' 

These words Sir Leoline first said, 

When he rose and found his lady dead: 335 

These words Sir Leoline will say 

Many a morn to his dying day! 

And hence the custom and law began 

That still at dawn the sacristan. 

Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 340 

Five and forty beads must tell 

Between each stroke — a warning knell. 

Which not a soul can choose but hear 

From Bratha Head to Wyndermere. 

Saith Bracy the bard, 'So let it knell! 345 

And let the drowsy sacristan 

Still count as slowly as he can ! 

There is no lack of such, I ween, 

As well fill up the space between. 

In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair, 350 

And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent, 

With ropes of rock and bells of air 

335, Christabel's mother is kept before us. 
339. Sacristan. The original form of sexton. 

344. Bratha Head, Wyndermere. Brathay and Windermere, some 
miles to the southeast of the site of the story. 

350. Langdale Pike, a craggy mountain. Sir Leoline's castle 
seems to have been near it. 

351. Dungeon Ghyll (or Gill), a deep ravine, with a waterfall near 
Langdale Pike. It looks as if rent apart. 

68 



CHRISTABEL 69 

Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent, 

Who all give back, one after t'other. 

The death-note to their living brother; 355 

And oft too, by the knell offended, 

Just as their one ! two ! three ! is ended. 

The devil mocks the doeful tale 

With a merry peal from Borrowdale.' 

The air is still ! through mist and cloud 360 

That merry peal comes ringing loud; 

And Geraldine shakes off her dread. 

And rises lightly from her bed; 

Puts on her silken vestments white, 

And tricks her hair in lovely plight, 365 

And nothing doubting of her spell 

Awakens the lady Christabel. 

'Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel? 

I trust that you have rested well/ 

And Christabel awoke and spied 370 

The same who lay down by her side — 

rather say, the same whom she 

Raised up beneath the old oak tree ! 

iSTay, fairer yet ! and yet more fair ! 

For she belike hath drunken deep 375 

Of all the blessedness of sleep ! 

353. Three sinful sextons'. Evidently a local legend connected 
with the wild, desolate, scene. 

354. The idea seems to be that there were bells enough to fill 
up the long intervals between the sacristan's peals, for the three 
condemned sextons were ringing their infernal chime and the bells 
from Borrowdale (six miles or so to the northwest) could be heard 
besides. 

365. Tricks. Arranges. Plight. Condition (or is it here equal 
to plait?). 

375-6. Lines of unusual beauty. 



70 CHRISTABEL 

And while she spake, her looks, her air. 

Such gentle thankfulness declare, 

That (so it seemed) her girded vests 

Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 380 

'Sure I have sinn'd !' said Christabel, 

^Now heaven be praised if all be well !' 

And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, 

Did she the lofty lady greet 

With such perplexity of mind 385 

As dreams too lively leave behind. 

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed 

Her maiden limbs, and having prayed 

That He, who on the cross did groan, 

Might w^ash away her sins unknown, 390 

She forthwith led fair Geraldine 

To meet her sire, Sir Leoline. 

The lovely maid and lady tall 

Are pacing both into the liall. 

And pacing on through page and groom, 395 

Enter the Baron's presence-room. 

The Baron rose, and while he prest 
His gentle daughter to his breast, 
With cheerful wonder in his eyes 

The lady Geraldine espies, 400 

And gave such welcome to the same 
As miofht beseem so brisfht a dame ! 



F381. Christabel doubts what she herself has seen. She feels 
that she must have dreamed it and that she must have wronged 
the lady. 

396. The Baron is fascinated from the first by Geraldine's beauty. 
He can believe no evil of her and will side with her against his own 
daughter. 



CHRISTABEL 71 

But when lie heard the lady's tale. 

And when she told her father's name. 

Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale, 405 

Murmuring o'er the name again, 

Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine? 

Alas! they had been friends in youth; 

But whispering tongues can poison truth; 

And constancy lives in realms above; 410 

And life is thorny; and youth is vain; 

And to be wroth with one we love 

Doth work like madness in the brain. 

And thus it chanced, as I divine. 

With Roland and Sir Leoline. 415 

Each spake words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother: 

They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 

But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining — 420 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 

A dreary sea now flows betw^een; 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder. 

Shall v/holly do away, I ween, 425 

The marks of that which once hath been. 

Sir Leoline, a moment's space, 

Stood gazing on the damsel's face: 

And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine 

Came back upon his heart again. 430 

408. A passage that may have been written independently and 
inserted in this poem. A wonderful picture of parted friendship. 



72 CHRISTABEL 

then the Baron forgot his age, 

His noble heart swelled high with rage; 

He swore by the wounds of Jesu's side 

He would proclaim it far and wide. 

With trump and solemn heraldry, 435 

That they, who thus had wronged the dame. 

Were base as spotted infamy! 

^And if they dare deny the same, 

My herald shall appoint a week. 

And let the recreant traitors seek 440 

My tourney court — that there and then 

I may dislodge their reptile souls 

From the bodies and forms of men!' 

He spake : his eye in lightning rolls ! 

For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned 445 

In the beautiful lady the child of his friend! 

And now the tears were on his face, 

And fondly in his arms he took 

Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace, 

Prolonging it with joyous look. 450 

Which when she viewed, a vision fell 

Upon the soul of Christabel, 

The vision of fear, the touch and pain! 

She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again — 

(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee, 455 

Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?) 



431-443. Note the ringing defiance, in proper medieval form. 

445. Kenned. Recognized. 

450. She wishes to increase her hold over him and so leave Chris- 
tabel defenceless. The sight of his infatuation made Christabel 
reaUze her own peril and loneliness. The serpent influence comes 
over her so strongly that she answers with "a hissing sound." 



CHRISTABEL 73 

x\gain she saw that bosom old^ 
Again she felt that bosom cold. 
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound: 
Whereat the Knight turned wildly round, 460 

And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid 
With eyes upraised, as one that prayed. 
The touch, the sight, had passed away, 
And in its stead that vision blest, 

"Wliich comforted her after-rest, 465 

While in the lady's arms she lay. 
Had put a rapture in her breast. 
And on her lips and o'er her eyes 
Spread smiles like light! With new surprise, 
'What ails then my beloved child?' 470 

The Baron said. — His daughter mild 
Made answer, 'All will yet be well!' 
I ween, she had no power to tell 
Aught else: so mighty was the spell. 

Yet he, who saw this Geraldine, 475 

Had deemed her sure a thing divine. 

Such sorrow with such grace she blended. 

As if she feared she had offended 

Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid ! 

And with such lowly tones she prayed 480 

She might be sent without delay 

Home to her father's mansion. 



463. The protecting influence again asserts itself, the vision of 
her mother's aid. 

474, The spell. The spell that kept her from telling what she 
had seen. 

475. Geraldine, of course, pretends angeUc meekness and sub- 
mission. 



74 CHRISTABEL 

'Nay ! 

Nay, by my soul!' said Leoline. 

^Ho ! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine ! 

Go thou, with music sweet and loud, 485 

And take two steeds with trappings proud. 

And take the youth whom thou lov'st best 

To bear thy harp, and learn thy song. 

And clothe you both in solemn vest. 

And over the mountains haste along, 490 

Lest wandering folk, that are abroad. 

Detain you on the valley road. 

^And when he has crossed the Irthing flood. 

My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes 

Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood, 495 

And reaches soon that castle good 

Whiich stands and threatens Scotland's wastes. 

'Bard Bracy ! Bard Bracy ! your horses are fleet, 

Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet, 

More loud than your horses' echoing feet! 500 

And loud and loud to Lord Eoland call, 

Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall ! 

Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free — ^ 

Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me. 

He bids thee com.e without delay 505 

AVith all thy numerous array; 

And take thy lovely daughter home. 

And he will meet thee on the way 

484. Bard. A bard was a minstrel. He might, as here, be used 
as a herald. 

489. Vest. Vestment, garments. 

493. Irthing, Knorren Moor, Halegarth. Places near the Scottish 
border. 



CHRISTABEL 75 

Witli all his numerous array 

White with their panting palfreys' foam: 510 

Andj by mine honour ! I will say. 

That I repent me of the day 

When I spake words of tierce disdain 

To Koland de Vaux of Tryermaine ! — 

For since that evil hour hath flown, 515 

Many a summer's sun hath shone; 

Yet ne'er found I a friend again 

Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine/ 

The lady fell, and clasped his knees, 

Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing; 520 

And Bracy rej^lied, with faltering voice. 

His gracious hail on all bestowing; 

'Thy words, thou sire of Christabel, 

Are sweeter than my harp can tell ; 

Yet might I gain a boon of thee, 525 

This day my journey should not be. 

So strange a dream hath come to me; 

That I had vowed with music loud 

To clear your wood from thing unblest. 

Warned by a vision in my rest ! 530 

For in my sleep I saw that dove. 

That gentle bird, whom thou dost love. 

And eall'st by thy own daughter's name — 

Sir Leoline ! I saw the same. 

Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan, 535 

Among the green herbs in the forest alone 

Which when^ I saw and when I heard, 

I wonder'd what might ail the bird; 



527. So strange a dream. His vision has shown him the truth, 
but he cannot interpret it. 



76 CHRISTABEL 

For nothing near it could I see^ 

Save the grass and green herbs underneath the old 

tree. 540 

'And in my dream, methought, I went 

To search out what might there be found; 

And what the sweet bird's trouble meant. 

That thus lav fluttering on the ground. 

I went and peered, and could descry 545 

j^o cause for her distressful cry; 

But yet for her dear lady's sake 

I stooped, methought, the dove to take, 

When lo ! I saw a bright green snake 

Coiled around its wing and neck. 550 

Green as the herbs on which it couched, 

Close by the dove's its head it crouched; 

And with the dove it heaves and stirs, 

Swelling its neck as she swelled hers ! 

I woke; it was the midnight hour, 555 

The clock was echoing in the tower; 

But though my slumber was gone by, 

This dream it would not pass away — 

It seems to live upon my eye ! 

And thence I vowed this self -same day 560 

With music strong and saintly song 

To wander through the forest bare, 

Lest aught unholy loiter there.' 

Thus Bracy said : the Baron, the while, 

Half-listening heard him with a smile; 565 

Then turned to Lady Geraldine, 

His eyes made up of wonder and love, 

567. The baron is completely infatuated. He has eyes only 
for her. 



CHRISTABEL 11 

And said in courtly accents fine, 

'Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove. 

With arms more strong than harp or song, 570 

Thy sire and I will crush the snake!' 

He kissed her forehead as he spake. 

And Geraldine in maiden wise 

Casting down her large bright eyes. 

With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 575 

She turned her from Sir Leoline; 

Softly gathering up her train, 

That o'er her right arm fell again; 

And folded her arms across her chest. 

And couched her head upon her breast, 580 

And looked askance at Christabel 

Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! 

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy. 

And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head. 

Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, 585 

And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread. 

At Christabel she look'd askance ! — 

One moment — and the sight was fled! 

But Christabel in dizzy trance 

Stumbling on the unsteady ground 590 

Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound; 

And Geraldine again turned round, 

And like a thing that sought relief, 

574-5. More affected modesty, — for Sir Leoline's eyes. 

576. Observe carefully the detail of the serpent position: — the 
train looped up in a curve, the arms folded out of sight, the head 
"couched" sideways, the look askance, out of the small "shrunken" 
eyes. No wonder that Christabel utters a "hissing sound." The 
picture is so vivid that the idea of the snake fills her whole being. 

593-6. Compare 574. 



78 CHRISTABEL 

Full of wonder and full of grief. 

She rolled her large bright eves divine 595 

Wildly on Sir Leoline. 

The maid, alas I her thoughts are gone. 

She nothing sees — no sight but one! 

The maid, devoid of guile and sin, 

I know not how, in fearful wise, 600 

So deeply had she drunken in 

That look, those shrunken serpent eyes. 

That all her features were resigned 

To this sole image in her mind : 

And passively did imitate 605 

That look of dull and treacherous hate! 

And thus she stood, in dizzy trance. 

Still picturing that look a.skance 

With forced unconscious sympathy 

Full before her father's view 610 

As far as such a look could be 

In eyes so innocent and blue ! 

And when the trance was o'er, the maid 

Paused awhile, and inly prayed : 

Then falling at the Baron's feet, 615 

*By my mother's soul do I entreat 

That thou this woman send away ? 

She said : and more she could not say : 

For what she knew she could not tell, 

O'ermastered by the mighty spell. 620 

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild, 
Sir Leoline? Thy only child 

605. Christabel feels the look of hate so keenly that, being under 
the spell, she cannot help imitating it. Note, however, lines 611 
and 612. 



CHRISTABEL 79 

Lies at th}^ feet, thy joy, thy pride, 

So fair, so innocent, so mild; 

The same, for whom tiiy lady died! 625 

0, by the pangs of her dear mother 

Think thou no evil of thy child! 

For her, and thee, and for no other, 

She prayed the moment ere she died. 

Prayed that the babe for whom she died, 630 

Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride I 

That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled, 

Sir Leoline ! 
And wouldst thou wrong thy only child. 

Her child and thine ? 635 

Within the Baron's heart and brain 

If thoughts, like these, had any share. 

They only swelled his rage and pain, 

And did but work confusion there. 

His heart was cleft with pain and rage, 640 

His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild, 

Dishonoured thus in his old age; 

Dishonoured by his only child, 

And all his hospitality 

To the insulted daughter of his friend 645 

By more than woman's jealousy 

Brought thus to a disgraceful end — 

He rolled his eye with stern regard 

Upon his gentle minstrel bard, 

And said in tones abrupt, austere — ' 650 

Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here? 

I bade thee hence !' The bard obeyed. 

And turning from his own sweet maid, 

629. The mother's prayer is kept before us. 



80 CHRISTABEL 

The aged knight, Sir Leoline, 

Led forth the lady Geraldine! 655 

655. Up to this point in the story. Geraldine triumphs. For the 
complete plan, never carried out, see pa|(e 54. This part ends 
with Christabel apparently at Geraldine's mercy, her father infatu- 
ated with the spells and beauty of her enemy. Her only hope 
lies in the guardianship of her mother's spirit. That hope, as 
Coleridge planned the story, was,4iot to fail her. 



CHRIST ABEL 81 

THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND 

A little child, a limber elf. 

Singing, dancing to itself, 

A fairy thing with red round cheeks, 

That always finds, and never :^eeks. 

Makes such a vision to the sight 6^0 

As fills a father's eyes with light; 

And pleasures flow in so thi^g>and fast 

Upon his heart, that he at la^ 

Must needs express his love's excess 

With words of unmeant bitterness. 665 

Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together 

Thoughts so all unlike each other; 

To mutter and mock a broken charm, 

To dally with wrong that does no harm. 

Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty 670 

At each wild word to feel within 

A sweet recoil of love and pity. 

And what, if in a world of sin 

(0 sorrow and shame should this be true!) 

Such giddiness of heart and brain 675 

Comes seldom save from rage and pain, 

So talks as it's most used to do. 

Conclusion to Part the Second. 

This is a conclusion to Part Second only in so far as it comes 
after it. It is of love instead of hate and of fatherly tenderness 
instead of a father's neglect. Coleridge probably had it at hand 
and inserted it here feeling that a passage of this kind made a pleasant 
contrasted relief. 

It aims to explain, rather philosophically, why a father, loving 
and petting his child, calls it such names as ''rascal", "rogue" and 
other tenderly abusive words. His last reason is that when we 
have emotions in this world, they are generally of rage, and there- 
fore words used to express these come most readily to mind when 
we have feelings to express. Is this convincing, — or is it simply 
gracefully ingenious? 



KUBLA KHAN 



INTRODUCTION 

This poem was published in 1816, in the same volume 
with "The Pains of Sleep/^ It was introduced by the 
following note : 

^'The following fragment is ]iere published at the re- 
quest of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and as 
far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather 
as a psychological curiosit}' than on the ground of any 
supposed poetic merits. 

"In the summer of the year 1797, the author, then 
in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between 
Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset 
and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, 
an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of 
which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that 
he was reading the following sentence, or words of the 
same substance, in Purchases Pilgrimage: 'Here the 
Elan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a 
stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile 
ground was inclosed with a wall.' The author continued 
for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of 
the external senses, during which time he has the most 
vivid confidence that he could not have composed less 
than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed 
can be called composition in which all the images rose 



84 INTRODUCTION 

up before him as things, with a parallel production of 
the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or 
consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to him- 
self to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and 
taking his pen, ink, and j^aper, instantly and eagerl}^ 
wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this 
moment he was unfortunately called out by a person 
on business from Porlock, and detained by him above 
an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to no 
small surprise and mortification, that though he still re- 
tained some vague and dim recollection of the general 
import of the vision, yet, with the exception of some 
eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had 
passed away like the images on the surface of a stream 
into which a stone has been cast, but alas ! without the 
after restoration of the latter. . . /' 

Coleridge's recollection of the passage that inspired 
the poem is not quite accurate. The actual words come 
nearer to the wording of the poem itself: — 

"In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, en- 
compassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, 
wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delight- 
full Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, 
and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of 
pleasure.'^ 

This idea the poet has developed as a musician de- 
velops a theme. He has added elaborate detail and, 
still more important, he has added a wealth of feeling. 
iHie has been able to make us feel all that this passage 
meant to him as he read it. 

Possibly the spot where the poem was composed had 
a little to do with the scenery depicted. The country 
of "Lorna Doone" (that book was not then written) has 
a grandeur about its heathery hills and seaward head- 
lands, and a richness in its wooded combes or hollows 



INTRODUCTION 85 

that may have prepared the writers mind to create this 
far grander and wilder picture. 

No study of the places named in the poem is desir- 
able. Coleridge used the names for their sound and 
their suggestion. Aw ignorant old woman once said that 
in church she had been helped by the ^'blessed Avord 
Mesopotamia." To feel the Oriental magic of these names 
we must approach them with an ignorance like hers. 

This poem must be read aloud. While it must not 
be read in a sing-song way, it must be read with em- 
phasis upon the rhythm,— it might indeed, be almost 
intoned or chanted, especially in such passages as 

^'Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man, 
Down to the sunless sea." 

The mjeter is of a free type, changing to fit the 
thought and mood, like the changing rhythms of a sonata 
or symphony. The reader must be guided by artistic 
instinct rather than by any set rule. 

If possible, the entire poem should be memorized. 



KFBLA KHAN 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A statel}^ pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

'Jlirough caverns measureless to man 

Down to a sunless sea. 5 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 

With walls and towers were girdled around: 

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills. 

Where blossomed man}' an incense-bearing tree; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10 

Enfolding sunny sj^ots of greenery. 

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 15 

By woman w^ailing for her demon-lover! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething. 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced : 

1. Khan is a title, "Kubla (the) Khan" or ruler. 

2. Pleasure dome. A dome of oriental architecture (like the 
Taj Mahal, for instance), airy and intricate, — a glorified "summer- 
house." 

8. Here. Some editions read there. WTiich is better? 

16. Demon lover. There are many old tales of mortals falling 
in love with superhuman beings, sometimes evil. 

19. Fountain. In the sense of waters gushing out from the 
earth, — a huge spring. 

86 . 



KUBLA KHAN 87 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 20 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail. 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's Hail: 

And ^mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 25 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man. 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 30 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 35 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw: 

It was an Abyssinian maid. 

And on her dulcimer she played, 40 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

Could I revive witlmi me 

Her symphony and song, 

To such a deep delight ^twould win me, 

31-36. The pleasure dome stood just above the caverns where 
the river sank to a sunless sea. 

37. Damsel. A change of plan as well as form. He means that 
could he recall the inspiration of her song, he might be able to depict 
the wonders of that dome. 

Dulcimer. An instrument somewhat like the zither. 

43. Sytnphony. Her playing upon the dulcimer. 



88 KUBLA KHAN 

That with music loud and long, 45 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 

And all who heard should see them there. 

And all should cry, 'Beware! Beware! 

His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 50 

Weave a circle around him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread. 

For he on honey-dew hath fed. 

And drunk the milk of Paradise.' 

49. And all should cry. All who should see and hear the poet 
so entranced. 

53. Honey-dew. See note on Ancient Mariner, page 34. 

There is no hint of the intended conclusion. One doubts whether, 
even if the person from Porlock had not broken in, the poem could 
ever have been completed. Dreams do not finish — they break off! 



/ 

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